Feels Like Home
by ColorOfAngels
Summary: Eliot doesn't know what to think when Parker starts randomly showing up in his home, expecting to be fed. He really doesn't know what to think when he realizes he doesn't mind anymore. Eliot x Parker. AU mid season three.
1. Safe House

A/N What's this? A new story in a new fandom? Yes, yes it is. So I watched Leverage for the first time a couple months back and immediately fell in love with it. This story is Eliot x Parker because I'm apparently incapable of writing canon ships. And it goes AU from the show sometime in season three, pre-pretzels...

I need to give my everlasting thanks to Alexandra926 without whom this story would be a mess and definitely not even close to being finished since she was the kick in the pants every time I needed the motivation to keep writing. I hope you all enjoy!

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"What's for dinner?"

"Hello, Parker. How are you doing tonight?" Eliot asked leadingly, barely glancing up when the thief suddenly materialized at the breakfast bar in his kitchen. It was hardly the first time she had done so, and he very much doubted it would be the last.

"The same as I was an hour ago when I left Nate's," she replied slowly, looking at him like she was concerned he had taken one too many knocks to the head for asking. "Except now, I'm clean. They really need to replace their air filters. Those vents were disgusting."

Sparing another glance at his teammate, he noticed that the blonde braid that was draped over her shoulder was still damp. She must have stopped by her place for a shower before showing up at his.

"We're trying to pop them for cutting corners by knowingly exposing their employees to toxic chemicals," he reminded her, talking about their current mark. "I don't think the air filters in their HVAC system are their top priority."

He didn't even care anymore that he wasn't 100% sure how she was getting into his condo. Sure, he had some working theories, but despite actively trying, he'd never been able to catch her in the act. He'd mostly come to grips with the idea of never knowing. But what he really did still want to know, was how she unfailingly managed to arrive _just_ as he was cooking dinner. Especially since it wasn't as if he ate at the same exact time every night.

Parker just shrugged, already done with this conversation and ready to move onto more pressing concerns. "So, what's for dinner?" she asked again.

"Chicken carbonara."

It had started not too long after the team had made the move from Los Angeles to Boston. Every few weeks, especially if they had some downtime between jobs and therefore he wasn't cooking for the team at Nate's, she would randomly appear in his condo with no prior notice or invitation, looking to be fed.

"Oh yummy!" she replied brightly. "Can I have extra cheese on mine?" she asked hopefully.

"If you set the table," he bargained, dumping the pancetta he had been chopping into a pan with some garlic to sauté together.

The first few times she'd broken in, he'd tried to impress upon her how lucky she was that he had realized who she was, before he attacked the intruder in his home. But his warnings for her personal welfare had been pointedly ignored. His insistence that most people called before inviting themselves over fell on deaf ears. And his requests that she at least knock and come through the front door like a sane person, were actually laughed at. While he'd never verbally admit it, he had long since given up on those particular fights.

"Deal," Parker agreed easily, silently hopping off her perch on the stool. Then and only then rounding the island to enter the kitchen where she could access the cabinets that held all the dining accoutrements they would need for a pasta dinner. Eliot may have lost the battle about coming to his condo uninvited, but he'd won the war over coming into his kitchen without permission.

Throwing together the sauce, Eliot watched from the corner of his eye as she set the table with careful precision, just as he'd shown her. The frequency of her visits had increased after Sophie had left on her soul-searching walkabout last year, and the hitter assumed it was because she missed the grifter and wanted company. Either that, or Parker had the whole team on some kind of meal rotation schedule known only to her, and he was getting her on Sophie's nights now as well. However, Sophie had been back for awhile now, and he still had an uninvited dinner guest sometimes as often as once or twice a week, so he didn't know what to think anymore.

Once the table was set, Parker wandered back over to her customary spot at the bar and gracefully slid back onto her stool. He had always appreciated the fact that she wasn't one who felt the need to fill the silence with idle chitchat. Instead, she was content to patiently wait - yes, Parker could in fact be patient outside of a job, as long as she was getting something she wanted out of it - and watch him while he finished cooking his, well now it was _their_ dinner.

"Taste," he said, holding a spoon with a bit of sauce over the bar for her to try. When she gave him a happy hum and double thumbs up, a corner of his mouth quirked up, which he hid by moving to combine the sauce with the finished pasta. When the timer on the oven went off, he paused what he was doing long enough to pull the garlic bread out of the broiler, quickly moving it to a plate which he slid in front of her. "Take this over to the table and I'll be right there."

It didn't take him more than a few minutes to put the finishing touches on the meal which he transferred to a serving bowl and carried to the table, where Parker was desperately trying to look innocent. Which had to be hard to do, with what had to be practically an entire piece of bread shoved into her mouth.

"Seriously, Parker?" he growled, annoyed. "You started without me?"

"No I didn't," she denied automatically through a severe case of chipmunk cheeks, spraying crumbs everywhere. When he gave his all too familiar 'don't fuck with me' look, she rolled her eyes and tried again. "It smelled so good! I couldn't help myself."

"Couldn't wait two damned minutes," he grumbled, more to himself than to Parker, even while he served her first before serving himself. It didn't matter if _she_ didn't have any manners, his Momma had taught him better.

This time she waited until he picked up his fork and took his first bite before she dug into the plate in front of her with gusto.

"Jesus, Parker, slow down before you choke," Eliot scolded. "It ain't gonna run out on ya."

"But it's so good!" she enthused, shoving another large chunk of garlic bread into her mouth.

Eliot shook his head with a fond sort of annoyance. It was, after all, always nice to have his cooking appreciated. Especially by Parker, who was by far the pickiest eater on the team, if the main ingredient wasn't sugar. "I'm happy you like it, darlin', but you'll enjoy it more if you eat slow enough to actually taste it."

Parker made a token effort to slow down, but still ate like she expected someone to take the plate from her before she finished, a habit that Eliot didn't like to contemplate the origins of. Instead, as he watched her finish off her first plate and serve herself seconds, he chose to muse on the fact that she must either have the fastest metabolism known to man, or she had a hollow leg where she was storing it all. There was no other explanation for how she ate the way she did, and stayed in such good shape.

Since _he_ liked to take the time to actually enjoy his food while he ate it, Eliot was still finishing his own meal when Parker dropped her fork on her empty plate with a clatter, slumped down in her chair and rested her hands on her very full stomach.

"My stomach is happy now," she announced with a bright smile.

"You're welcome," he replied, knowing that that was as close to a thank you for dinner as he was going to get.

Once he was finished eating, Parker automatically stood to help him gather up the dishes and take them over to the sink so that they could wash them. A routine borne of another battle that Eliot had won; he figured if she was going to keep inviting herself over for dinner, the least she could do was help clean up and do the dishes.

She had been permanently assigned drying duty; banned from washing after she'd reached into a sudsy sink and grabbed one of Eliot's razor-sharp boning knives by the business end. Putting twelve stitches across all four fingers on her left hand was not how Eliot had wanted to end that particular evening. On top of that, Parker had been in a mood for days afterwards. Her hands were her livelihood, and losing the use of one of them, no matter how temporarily was devastating. Plus, Eliot had felt legitimately guilty for not thinking to warn her that the knife was in the sink. The icing on the cake was how annoyed Nate had been when Parker refused to tell him how she had gotten the injury. Since somewhere along the way, Eliot and Parker seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement not to tell the rest of the team that she was a regular dinner guest at the hitter's home. All in all, it was an experience that no one had wanted to repeat; hence, he washed, and she dried.

"So why can't we just use the dishwasher?" she asked, just like she did _every time._

"Damnit, Parker," Eliot growled, not about to go through it again.

"Fine!" she exclaimed, snatching a clean dish towel from the drawer where he kept them, ready to do her part.

Standing elbow to elbow, they made quick work of the dishes and the kitchen was soon once again set to right. Sliding the last of the silverware back into the drawer, Eliot watched Parker for her next move.

Sometimes she ate and ran, disappearing as silently as she came. Other days, she hung around for a bit. Depending on the kind of day they'd had and how much extra energy Parker had to burn, they'd either just veg in front of the TV for awhile, or they'd head to his home gym and he'd work with Parker on her self-defense moves.

Parker's usual role on the team meant that she was the one most likely to get herself into a situation that she might be forced to fight her way out of, outside of himself, of course. She'd never be a hitter, but that was okay. That was _his_ job. And as such, her first choice in a bad situation should always be to disappear, since it was what she did better than anyone. But if push came to shove and she didn't have any other choice, Eliot slept better at night knowing that she knew how to handle herself, and would be able to hold her own at least until he was able to get to her.

He watched as she meandered through his living room, taking a circuitous route through the open floorplan to the couch, pausing to toe off her shoes and snag the remote from the coffee table before flopping bonelessly onto the cushions. When she curled her feet underneath her like a cat and started flipping through the channel guide to find something on the TV that interested her, he saw that it was going to be a veg in front of the TV night.

"What are we watching?" he asked, dropping down next to her on the couch, accepting that she wasn't going to be leaving him alone any time soon with grace. As annoyed as he had been when she'd first developed this habit, lately he'd found that he didn't really mind her company.

"Mythbusters," she said, not taking her eyes off the screen. "I like it when they make things blow up."

"Of course you do," Eliot chuckled dryly. "Just don't be getting any ideas."

"Of course not," Parker assured him quickly, much to his surprise. She turned to look at him with the smile that made sane men take a step back, "I already have plenty of ideas on my own."

Eliot shook his head. "There's something wrong with you," he told her for the hundredth time, although it didn't carry any of the bite that it once had. He pointed back to the TV, redirecting her attention. "Watch your show."

He watched with her for awhile, until he realized this episode of Mythbusters was studying whether muzzle flash could cause an explosion if the shooter were in a house with a gas leak, and whether shooting through a carton of milk would stop it. Rolling his eyes at the whole scenario and already knowing the answer from personal experience, he picked up his copy of 'The Holy Road' by Michael Blake from the end table.

Absorbed in his reading, and only because the part of his brain that involved situational awareness never fully turned off, Eliot was only peripherally aware of the fact that as the first episode of Mythbusters turned into a second, that Parker was slowly sliding down the couch. It wasn't until her head was pillowed on the armrest and her feet stretched out across the space between them, her glittery green painted toes pressed up against the outside of his thigh, that he spared a glance in the thief's direction. It seemed that the combination of a full belly, a long day on the job, and his comfortable leather couch had done her in. She was fast asleep.

His first instinct was to shake her awake and send her home so she could sleep in her own bed, but she looked so peaceful that he didn't have the heart to disturb her just yet. He decided that he would let her nap a little longer, then cut her a slice of the chocolate chess pie - that he _had not_ made with her in mind - for dessert, before sending her to work off her sugar high by jumping off the John Hancock Tower, or whatever it was she usually did when she left his place on the evenings she came for dinner.

Gently pulling the remote out of Parker's sleep-loosened grasp, he turned off the TV and turned his attention back to his book. He read another couple of chapters before she shot straight up, looking around the room with wide eyes, like she didn't know where she was.

"Parker… _Parker_ ," he repeated her name and snapped his fingers to get her attention. "You alright, darlin'?" he asked once she made eye contact.

"What happened?" she asked, disoriented.

"Nothing. You fell asleep while you were watching TV."

"No I didn't," she refuted automatically.

"Yes, you did Parker," Eliot said, giving her that askance look she so often inspired. "You were out for over an hour and a half."

"No," Parker shook her head, getting that panicky look in her eyes that she usually got before she bolted out the nearest window.

"It's alright. I didn't mind," he reassured her in the voice he usually reserved for small children and spooked horses. "It's been a long day, you were tired."

"No!" she insisted, pulling her knees up to her chest and drawing in on herself. "I don't _do_ that."

"What… sleep? Everyone sleeps, even I have to sleep occasionally," Eliot said, getting up from the couch and heading for the kitchen, knowing that sometimes Parker needed physical space to calm herself down. "You're not excluded from that."

"I don't _just fall asleep_ ," she huffed, her eyes tracking his movements while she explained. "Not when I'm not safe behind my locks, behind my security. Not in front of other people."

Eliot paused for a moment in the middle of slicing up dessert. He could certainly understand where she was coming from. People in their line of work could never be too careful, especially about where they were at their most vulnerable. He thought about the warehouse that Parker called - no, Eliot couldn't call it a home, not even in his own mind - the place where Parker usually slept. He thought back to that windowless space with its steel door and variety of locks. He remembered the bank of CCTV screens that gave her camera angles of every possible approach. He would put good money down on the idea that she probably had other various security precautions that she set for when she went to sleep. There was a reason why Parker was known as the uncatchable thief. She hadn't gotten that reputation by anything less than constant vigilance.

In fact, thinking back on it, he realized that before tonight, he had never actually seen Parker asleep. Not even on long transatlantic flights. Which, okay, he understood that, since he was the same way. There was no way he could sleep in a tin can full of strangers either. But he'd also never seen her sleep on the sometimes unbearably long road trips the gang would take on jobs, where they would switch off drivers so they could drive through the night without stopping. Not even at Nate's, where Sophie would simply steal the mastermind's bed if she wanted a nap, and Hardison could often be found slumped over a keyboard after an all-night hacking session. Even he'd found himself crashing on Nate's couch a time or two after a particularly rough fight. But never Parker.

"What do you do when we're out of town on jobs?" he found himself asking, as he topped a healthy slice of pie with homemade whipped cream for Parker, and a smaller slice for himself.

"If I _have_ to sleep, I usually find a vent somewhere to nap in, where no one can get to me," she shrugged as if it was obvious. "I don't sleep out in the open. It's not safe. I can't sleep if I'm not safe."

Eliot crossed back over to the couch and handed Parker her plate. "Well then, I guess that just means you must feel safe here."

He'd meant it as a throwaway comment. He was the team's hitter after all, keeping them, and by extension, keeping _her_ safe was literally part of his job description. However, Parker's entire body tensed at his statement. Her instinctive reaction was to look at him as though he'd just suggested that there were more important things in the world than money. But as she picked up the fork he handed her and slowly started eating her dessert, a whole host of expressions flitted across her face, too fast for him to begin picking them apart. When it finally settled on that blank look that even Sophie couldn't decipher, Eliot shook his head to himself, picked up the remote and turned it to Sportscenter, watching the highlights as he ate his own dessert.

She didn't speak again until Eliot was taking the last bite of his pie.

"Can I sleep here with you tonight?"

Eliot inhaled sharply, sucking graham cracker crust crumbs into his lungs. " _What_?! No, Parker!"

"Please?"

It was the 'please' that had given him pause. He hadn't been aware that Parker even knew the word. "Why?" he asked, once he had finished coughing.

She looked at him with wide guileless eyes and simply said, "Because I feel _safe_ here."

Eliot clenched his jaw and growled lowly in his chest. "Fine!" he exclaimed, despite himself. Because really, how could he say no to that, knowing just how difficult it must have been for her to say. "Just this once. But you're sleeping on the couch."

"Okay," Parker agreed easily, with a one-shouldered shrug. That was what she'd wanted anyways.

Holding his hand out for her plate, he got up off the couch and dumped the dirty dishes in the sink to be dealt with in the morning, before disappearing down the hallway towards his bedroom. It only took him a few minutes to grab a spare pillow from his bed, an extra blanket from the chest underneath the window, and a new unused toothbrush from beneath the bathroom sink. He hesitated at the door, before turning back to his dresser and grabbing an old flannel shirt to stick on top of the pile he was carrying.

Back out in the living room he found her in the same position he left her in, except she had changed the channel to Animal Planet.

"Did you know that wombat poop is square?" she asked when he reentered the room, not glancing away from the TV. "Well, I guess technically it's cubes."

Eliot's stride stuttered just slightly. "What... really?"

"Yup! I want one," she announced. "It could be the team mascot."

"No."

"I wonder if they have any at the Franklin Park Zoo," she mused as if he hadn't spoken. "I've never stolen anything from a zoo before. Shouldn't be hard, minimal security, made to keep animals in more than people out. Twelve minutes and forty seconds give or take, depending on how cooperative the wombat is."

"Absolutely not," he reiterated, already knowing he would have to keep an eye on this situation until this fancy of hers passed. He did not want to have to explain to Nate why he had a square-pooping marsupial running around the loft. "I thought you didn't like animals anyways."

Parker turned to look at him like he was the one who was being ridiculous. "I like animals. I just don't like horses, because they're murderous. I don't think a wombat could kill anyone, clown or otherwise."

Eliot rolled his eyes. Someday he was going to have to actually find out the rest of that story, but tonight was not that night. "Here," he said, dropping the bundle of bedding onto her lap.

"What's the shirt for?" she asked, spotting it on top of the pile.

"I thought you might want something to sleep in," he explained through gritted teeth.

"Oh." She usually slept naked, but she could hear Sophie's voice in her head telling her why that wouldn't be appropriate when spending the night at someone else's house. Moving the pillow and blanket off to the side, she stood up and started stripping off the clothes she was wearing.

"Damnit, Parker!" Eliot exclaimed, turning around on his heel. Then, realizing he could still see her reflection in the darkened windows, he shut his eyes, wondering not for the first time what the woman had against wearing underwear.

When he heard her shaking out the blanket, he figured it was probably safe for him to turn back around. Catching sight of the thief in his shirt as she arranged the bedding on the couch, her petite frame dwarfed by the oversized flannel, just long enough to cover the top of her thighs, caused him to swallow hard. He'd always had a visceral reaction to a woman wearing his clothes, but he quickly pushed that thought away. It was Parker, for god's sake!

"Well, you know where everything is," he told her, at a loss for anything else to say. He turned to leave when he remembered something else. "Do _not_ touch my coffee maker in the morning." It was a ban already implemented at Nate's after the 'espresso incident', but he knew Parker well enough to know where she would see a loophole if he didn't add his particular machine to the ban list. When he spotted the petulant pout starting to form on her face, he resorted to bribery. "If you don't touch it, I'll make you pancakes for breakfast."

She brightened instantly. "Will you make that hot berry jam thing that you made that one time with them?"

It only took Eliot a beat to remember what she was talking about. "It's a blueberry-raspberry compote," he corrected. "And yeah, I can make that too." He paused as though he were going to say something else, then shook his head slightly, picked up the book he had left on the coffee table and headed back to his bedroom. "Goodnight, Parker," he called over his shoulder.

"Goodnight, Sparky!" she called back.

Back in his bathroom with several locked doors between them - not that it would slow Parker down in the slightest if she decided to go through them, but it was the principle of the matter - Eliot went through his own nightly routine. He took a long hot shower letting it do the work on relaxing his tight muscles, shaved so that he would have just the right amount of stubble by morning, and brushed his teeth. That done, he then ran a blow-dryer over his hair so it wouldn't be completely unmanageable when he woke up. Once he was clean and dry, he laid down in bed to read a few more chapters of his book before he went to sleep.

When he felt like he was tired enough to actually get some rest, he put the book on the nightstand and got up to do his nightly rounds, making sure everything was in order and locked up tight. Parker wasn't the only one who needed to make sure she was safe and secure before comfortably going to sleep.

It was always in Eliot's nature to move silently, but aware that Parker might already be asleep, he took extra care to do so as he moved around the condo making sure everything was as it should be. When he circled back around to the couch, he saw that she was in fact asleep, her breathing deep and slow. She'd fallen asleep with the TV on, tuned to some inane infomercial about some ridiculous kitchen gadget he would never be caught dead owning, so he once again turned it off before setting the remote on the coffee table.

Turning back to the couch, he carefully adjusted the blanket she was using, which at some point had slid half-way off the couch, leaving her legs exposed to the cool night air. Once he had made sure she was properly covered, Eliot couldn't help taking a look down at the peacefully sleeping thief. He felt the sudden urge to pick her up and tuck her into his bed where she would be more comfortable and take the couch himself. He resisted the temptation, instead silently stalking back to his bedroom, grumbling under his breath that he wasn't running a bed and breakfast for crazy thieves, ignoring the fact that he had already promised to make her pancakes in the morning.

"It's just for one night," he muttered to himself as he threw himself into bed, adjusting the pillows with more force than strictly necessary, before yanking the covers up over his chest.

 _It's just for one night._

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A/N So there we have it, hope you're enjoying this new story! Let me know what you think!


	2. Eliot Spencers's B&B for Crazy Thieves

A/N Here we are again with chapter two! I just want to thank everyone who read chapter one and triple thank everyone who took the time to review. Writing stories in new fandoms is always super nerve wreaking for me so the feedback means the world to me :D

And once again I need to thank Alexandra926 for all her invaluable help and feedback with this chapter... I hope you all enjoy!

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It was _not_ just for one night.

He really should have seen it coming.

If you gave Parker an inch, she'd steal a mile and your wallet.

For the first few weeks, everything had gone back to how it had been before. Occasionally she would just show up for dinner, and sometimes she hung around around for awhile before she went home. Eliot had naively believed that she had understood that their little sleepover was a one-time-only deal. No encores.

Lulled into a false sense of security, Eliot didn't think anything of it one night when they were sitting on his couch, drinking beer, sharing a bowl of popcorn, and watching a documentary about Prohibition. He was in a good mood. They'd completed a job earlier in the day, no one on the crew had gotten hurt, they'd gotten the client their life's work back, put the bad guys in jail, and he'd even gotten to punch a few people.

"We would have made awesome bootleggers," Parker announced, shoving another handful of popcorn into her mouth.

"You think so?" he asked bemused, taking another sip from the bottle he had resting on his knee.

"Oh yeah, with you in charge of the moonshine, and me doing the rum-running," she said surely, "we'd be untouchable."

"Why do _you_ get to do the rum-running?" he asked teasingly. "Maybe _I_ want to do the driving and _you_ can make the booze."

"You don't even let me touch the coffeemaker," she reminded him sardonically. "Would you really let me work a still?" The laugh he responded with was answer enough. "Plus, I don't even know how to make a still."

"What makes you think I do?" he countered, eyes twinkling.

"Don't you?" she responded challengingly. It seemed to her like a skill that the hitter would have in his rather large and eclectic wheelhouse.

"I might have a basic idea how to put one together," he admitted.

"I thought so," she said smugly, reaching across the couch to poke at a bruise on his shoulder, her smirk only deepening when he bat away her hand with a half-hearted glare. "Besides, I think I have more experience running from the cops then you do."

"Somehow I doubt that, darlin'."

"I was eleven when I started working as a getaway driver."

Eliot almost choked on the beer he was drinking. "What?! Really? _Eleven_?"

Parker nodded, as though it were a totally normal career path for a sixth grader. "That was when I was finally tall enough to reach the pedals and see over the steering wheel at the same time."

Eliot took another sip of beer to hide the grimace on his face at the twisting in his gut that he always got whenever Parker dropped a hint about her dysfunctional childhood. He swore to himself that one of these days he was going to have her write a list, and he was going to start making house calls to all the adults who'd failed her while she was growing up.

"Okay, you can be the driver," he finally said, just to move the conversation along.

He was still stewing as Parker gave jobs to the other members of the hypothetical prohibition-era Leverage crew, so he wasn't really paying much attention when she handed him the bowl of popcorn and stood, heading down the hall. He had assumed she was just going to use the restroom, which was why his head had nearly exploded when she walked back into the living room, dressed once again in one of his flannel shirts, a pillow and blanket tucked under one arm.

"What the hell, Parker!"

"What?" she asked, resituating herself on the couch underneath her newly purloined blanket.

Eliot didn't even know where to start. "Are you wearing my shirt?!" He didn't even want to ask where the clothes she had been wearing had ended up.

"Uh-huh," Parker confirmed nonchalantly, making grabby hands for the popcorn he was still holding.

"Did you seriously just go into my bedroom and go through all the drawers in my dresser right now?!" he growled, even while he unthinkingly pushed the bowl into her waiting hands.

"Of course not," she said, like she had the right to be insulted at the accusation. "I didn't have to. I already knew which drawer they were in."

Eliot's hands twitched like they were itching to hit something. "What?! How did you- " He cut himself off, and when he spoke again it was in that false calm he got when he was trying not to break things. "You know what, no... I don't want to know. What I do want to know is _**why** _are you wearing my shirt?"

Parker just shrugged. "It's what you gave me to sleep in last time."

"And who said you could sleep here tonight?" Eliot sputtered.

"I'm getting tired."

"Then go home!" he exclaimed, trying to understand when that had ceased to be the obvious solution.

"But we're watching this," she pointed at the TV. "I don't want to miss the end, and I'll be too sleepy to get home by the time it's over."

"Then I will drive you home when it's over."

Parker was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. "I slept really well here last time," she admitted, carefully digging through the bowl of popcorn as though she was looking for the perfect piece, to avoid looking him in the eye. "I don't usually sleep that well."

Eliot silently counted backwards from ten. When that didn't help, he tried it again in Japanese. Then in Urdu. And again in French.

"So I can stay?" Parker asked hopefully, as she watched Eliot's mood settle from underneath her eyelashes.

"Parker…." Eliot sighed heavily. "Whatever."

Parker beamed at him as she nestled further into the couch, snuggling up in the blanket.

After that first - well, second - night, she didn't even bother asking.

Instead, she started staying the night almost every time she came over for dinner. And even on some nights that she didn't.

The first time he had walked through what _should_ have been his empty living room on his way for his morning coffee, and instead found Parker once again asleep on his couch, wearing a shirt he knew he had put away with the rest of his clean laundry the night before, he'd nearly burst a blood vessel. Not only had she come into his home uninvited, which admittedly he was used to by now, but she had been in his _bedroom_ while he was _**sleeping**_! He had to tell himself that it was only because he had gotten so used to having her around, that his subconscious no longer viewed her as a viable threat, and that was why she was able to get in and out of his room without waking him. Because the alternative was that he was losing his edge. And that was unacceptable.

She was curled into a tight ball, which he knew was unusual because every time he'd seen her asleep, she'd been stretched out like she was free-falling, which was what he imagined her best dreams were about. He assumed it was because she was cold in the early morning air, because while she'd thought to steal a shirt, it apparently hadn't occurred to her to grab a blanket. His first instinct was to go grab her the quilt that was at the foot of his bed, but then he scoffed and went to start the coffeemaker. The smell would wake her up soon enough and as far he was concerned, people who break and enter don't get turndown service. Rummaging through his pantry, he bypassed his usual Kona beans, and pulled out the kopi luwak. It was that kind of morning.

She slept through the noise of the coffee grinder just like he expected, but sure enough, as soon he was filling a couple of mugs, Parker came shuffling into the kitchen rubbing at her tired eyes.

"What are you doing here, Parker?" he asked, his irritation only growing as he watched her pour an absurd amount of sugar into her mug, ruining what was probably a seventy-five dollar cup of coffee.

"Caffeinating," was all she said, still not fully awake.

"You can't just let yourself in whenever you want, Parker," he growled. "Especially barging into my bedroom while I'm sleeping! How would you feel if someone did that to you?"

"I was quiet. I didn't wake you up," she said, defending her choices with a pout.

"That's not the point! The point is that that's crossing a line, Parker. Even for you!" Parker actually had the decency to look mildly guilty and vaguely uncomfortable, which was Eliot's first clue that something else was going on. "What were you thinking?"

"I had a nightmare," she explained softly into her mug. "Normally, after one of those I can never fall back asleep. So I was going to go jump off a building or find a vault to break into, to make myself feel better like I normally do, but my feet ended up walking me here instead."

Eliot's anger rushed out of him in an exasperated sigh. Parker had the singular ability to wind him up faster than almost anybody else, and then turn around and completely knock the wind from his sails. She just made it so difficult to stay mad at her sometimes.

"Damnit Parker," he muttered, scrubbing a hand down his face. "What am I going to do with you?"

She just shrugged, as if to say she didn't know what to do with her either.

"You get a lot of bad dreams?" he asked, knowing all too well what it was like for your subconscious to be haunted by your past. There was a reason he was so adept at functioning on only ninety minutes of sleep a night.

Her eyes darted around the room and he knew she was calculating escape routes.

"Sometimes," she confessed.

He sighed again. "Darlin'-" he began, but whatever he was going to say next was cut short when his phone went off in his pocket. "Go get dressed, we gotta get to Nate's. The mark is making his move early and we have to move up the timetable," he said, reading the text from Hardison.

Eliot used the time it took for Parker to get ready for the day to pour the rest of the coffee from the pot into a travel mug to bring with him, not about to waste it just because the mark got jumpy.

Neither of them spoke on the drive to Nate's. Parker was content to stare out the truck's window, watching the world go by, while Eliot gave half his attention to the morning rush hour traffic and devoted the other half to trying to figure out what he was going to do about this new situation with Parker. He just didn't know how to establish, let alone enforce, boundaries with someone who wasn't scared of him. Which, he had to admit, was a novel problem for him to have. Everyone who knew what he was capable of was at least a _little_ scared of him. Even the rest of the team who knew he would never actually hurt them, were wary of and had a healthy respect for the violence that rested just beneath his skin.

But not Parker, who knew exactly who and what he was, who had watched him break men with his bare hands and still literally laughed in the face of his anger when it was directed at her, completely secure in the knowledge he'd never let that anger touch her. Parker, who fearlessly broke into his home on a regular basis, an offense he'd killed men for in the past, and then demanded he make her favorite meals because as she'd once told him; 'Eliot food tastes better than not-Eliot food'. Parker, who took delight in poking at his various injuries and bruises after a fight, grinning when he snapped at her, but who would also use her master sleight-of-hand skills to switch warming cold packs for fresh ones, sometimes without him even realizing she had done it until afterwards. The woman was an enigma and he just didn't know what to do about her.

Part of him wanted to talk to Sophie for advice. The grifter had a way of getting through to their thief that the rest of them did not. But Sophie would ask questions and want explanations. Questions that he didn't have the answers to, and explanations that he was unprepared to give. So he was on his own.

He was parking around the back of Nate's building, deciding that he would at least try to establish some limits before they got all caught up in the con. But as he pulled into a space and set the parking brake, he was distracted by the sight of pieces of Parker's phone suddenly materializing in her hands.

"Uh, what-"

"Hardison gets nosy," she answered his question before he finished asking it. "He finally stopped putting trackers in my shoes after I kept mailing them to other countries in alphabetical order, but I know he still tracks my phone sometimes," she continued as she snapped the battery back into place and turned it on. "But he doesn't always need to know where I am, especially if we're not working, so I take the battery out of my phone when I'm at your place."

Eliot couldn't help but wonder about Parker's specific reasoning behind that. Was it just that as such an independent creature, she didn't want anyone tracking her movements? Was it an extension of their unspoken agreement not to tell the others about the extra time they were spending together outside the team setting? Did she not want Hardison, in particular, to know that she had taken to spending the night at his house? Eliot pushed aside his questions. Despite his curiosity, he was not about to ask.

Instead, he figured that this was a perfect segue into respecting boundaries, but Parker kept talking before he could interject.

"Sophie says he does it because he cares," she said with a shrug. "That he just wants to make sure I'm safe. But there's nowhere I'm safer than when I'm with you, so there's no reason for him to need to track me there," she concluded with a genuine smile.

And there she went, completely cutting his irritation off at the knees for the second time that morning. He just couldn't help it when she looked at him with that earnest and open expression on her normally guarded face.

"I'd never let anything happen to you if I could help it." It wasn't what he had meant to say, but it was what had come out of his mouth.

"I know," she said, as matter-of-factly as if he had told her that the sky was blue. "See you upstairs!"

And then she was gone, out of the car and darting off in the opposite direction of the door. Shaking his head to himself, Eliot watched her disappear around the corner before he climbed out of the truck, locked it up and headed inside. By the time he made it upstairs and let himself into Nate's loft/their headquarters, Parker was sitting on Nate's kitchen counter eating a bowl of the awful sugary cereal that she so enjoyed, chatting with Sophie while the grifter made her tea, looking for all the world as though she'd been there all morning.

"There you are, Sparky," she said, announcing his arrival before the door had even fully shut behind him. "You're the last one here."

"Yeah man, where you been?" Hardison added, jumping on the bandwagon. "The rest of us been waiting on you for ages."

Eliot shot a glare in Parker's direction since it couldn't have been more than three minutes since they'd split up in the parking lot, but she just shot him a faux-innocent grin belied by the puckish glint in her eye, knowing that he couldn't exactly call her out on it.

"That's enough," Nate announced, calling a halt to the habitual bickering between the hacker and the hitter, before Eliot even had a chance to get a word in. "We've got a lot to get through this morning and not a lot of time to do it in."

As they all made their way over to the screens, Eliot got his head in the game for the con ahead. He'd figure out what he was going to do with his little thief later.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Eliot never did have that conversation with Parker. Which was why, one morning several weeks later when the crew was between jobs, he found himself casually leaning against the living room wall, drinking a cup of coffee, watching her sleep on a couch that had been empty when he'd gone to bed. She was wearing the shirt that he had _accidentally_ forgotten in the clean clothes hamper he'd left on the washing machine. And she was huddled underneath the blanket he'd taken to leaving folded over the back of the couch, but only because it was convenient to have it there in case he got cold while he was watching TV.

Even though she didn't move right away, he still knew the moment she woke up. It was subtle, but easy to spot if you knew what you were looking for. Before opening her eyes, she would systematically tense all her muscles one by one, as if making sure everything was just like she left it when she went to sleep.

"You're ruining my couch," he announced. "It's made to be sat on, not slept on all the time."

Parker's eyes popped open, easily finding and meeting Eliot's gaze from where he stood across the room. She sat up and looked back down at the couch where she had just been sleeping. It looked fine to her.

"Want me to steal you a new one?" she offered.

"How would you steal a couch?" he asked automatically, before remembering who he was talking to, and dismissing the question outright. "No. I don't want you to steal me a new one. I want you to stop sleeping on this one."

An unhappy frown settled on Parker's face. That was the opposite of what she wanted.

"Come here," he said, pushing off the wall and heading down the hallway, not waiting to see if she actually got up to follow.

When he stopped in front of the door to what had always been his storage/catch-all room, he turned to see if she had listened and found that she was barely inches behind him, looking at him with curious eyes. He didn't bother to explain as he pushed open the door and motioned for her to go inside.

"What's this?" she asked curiously, looking around the room which had been completely transformed from the last time she had snooped in here, when she'd found it boring and not worthy of her time.

"It's a room, with a bed in it," he said dryly.

"Why?"

"I've been meaning to set up my guest room for awhile now." It was a lie and they both knew it. Eliot Spencer didn't have guests. Well, except for now. Except for Parker. "So now you can sleep in here and stop ruining my couch."

Eliot watched Parker carefully as she took in her surroundings. There wasn't a whole lot of leftover floor space, since it was the smallest bedroom in the condo. The larger spare bedroom having been converted to his home gym almost as soon as he'd moved in. The lingering smell of paint in the air meant that the buttery yellow walls were fresh. The color complemented the sage green comforter on the queen-sized bed. She crossed the room to run her hand down the solid maple bed frame, which matched the dresser that sat against the opposite wall.

"Green's my favorite color," was all Parker said, turning to look back at him with a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

"Whatever," Eliot said gruffly, turning on his heel and stalking back down the hall towards the kitchen, muttering about the ingredients that he would need to make frittatas for breakfast.

Parker sat down on the edge of the bed to test the mattress and let her hand run over the top of the comforter. When her fingers skirted underneath the pillows and found the sheets beneath them, her smile grew. The sheets Eliot had chosen were made out of flannel.

* * *

A/N So there we have it, hope you're enjoying it! Let me know what you think!


	3. The Key to Successful Cohabitation

A/N Yay! It's time for chapter three! This is actually the first half of the chapter because the word count was getting out of control, so here it is!

And as always my eternal thanks go to Alexandra926 who is the absolute bestest ever 3... I hope you all enjoy!

* * *

Parker took Eliot's setting up the guest bedroom as an open invitation to start spending as much time at his place as she wanted. Eliot wanted to be annoyed about it, but this time he knew in his heart of hearts, that he really had brought it on himself. Instead of showing up before dinner, or in the middle of the night and disappearing after breakfast, now Parker would sometimes spend the whole day making herself at home in the hitter's condo.

It wasn't that she'd moved in completely. She was just a guest, despite the fact that he was constantly finding Parker-shaped belongings all over the place. A brush full of blonde hair now lived on the guest bathroom counter, next to the toothbrush he had given her that first night. He'd gotten used to stepping over her Converse, discarded by the front door, in spite of the fact that she very rarely entered or exited that way of her own volition. And when he'd gone on a hunt for dirty laundry since he knew he was missing shirts, he was hardly even surprised when he found a box of locks underneath the guestroom bed and climbing harnesses hanging in the closet.

But despite all of that, she had _not_ moved in. He was very firm on that point. Or at least he would have been, had there been anyone who knew enough about their new arrangement to ask. It was just that in any given week, she spent the night in the spare bedroom more often than she didn't, and if they had downtime between jobs there was about a 50/50 chance that Parker would spend most, if not the whole day hanging around.

Of course, she was still Parker, so she couldn't be completely predictable. To Eliot's eye there was no rhyme or reason to when Parker chose to stay over and when she didn't. One time, after a particularly rough job - both of them took jobs that involved abused kids a little harder - she'd stayed for six days straight. The next time they had a job go sideways and almost end extremely poorly for all of them, he had expected much of the same. Instead, she'd all but vanished until Nate had called them all in for their next job.

And although he would rather face off against the entire Solntsevskaya Brotherhood than admit it, he was always a bit relieved when he woke up to find the door to the guest bedroom closed, knowing that he'd left it open when he'd gone to sleep, if Parker hadn't been around for more than four or five days in a row. He purposely chose not to examine the reasons why he felt that way, too closely. He never asked her where she went when she disappeared for days at a time, and she never volunteered. He would simply make two cups of coffee and wait for the smell to bring her to the kitchen like it always did, then ask her if she wanted an omelet or waffles for breakfast.

That wasn't to say that all of it had been smooth sailing, or that there weren't times when Eliot seriously regretted opening his home to the thief. Because it wasn't and he did. There had been a steep learning curve as they learned how to cohabitate, even if it was only part-time. The only reason it worked at all was through developing a series of rules and compromises.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

The same day that Eliot had shown Parker the guest room for the first time, Nate had called them in for a job that had taken them over two weeks to run. It had been a grift-heavy con, without nearly enough fighting for Eliot's taste. So when they finally had their first day off in weeks, the hitter took advantage of his free morning to take in a nice, long workout session. When he had announced his intentions to Parker over the breakfast dishes, he figured she would take that as her cue to leave, but when she simply wandered over to the couch and turned on the TV, he'd just shrugged and went to go change into his exercise clothes.

He went through his normal routine first, skipped some rope to warm up, lifted weights, and stretched out before turning to the heavy bag he had strung up in the corner of the room. He worked the bag until his shoulders burned and his shirt was soaked through with sweat, and then he worked for an hour more. Finally, when his muscles felt like jelly and each breath was like fire in his lungs, he reached out and grabbed the bag with both hands to stop it from swinging, leaning on it heavily while he waited for his heart rate to slow. Once he felt like he could move again, he pulled the clammy shirt over his head, wiped the sweat off his face, and threw it over one shoulder while he crossed to where he'd left his water bottle sitting on the treadmill. Sitting down heavily on his weight bench, he drained the bottle and worked on peeling the tape he had wrapped his knuckles with from his hands.

What he really wanted to do next was take a shower, but he could still hear the TV faintly from the living room, which he assumed meant that Parker hadn't skipped out while he was working out. Curious as to what she could possibly be doing while left to her own devices all morning, he went to check on her and make sure she hadn't tried to burn his house down before going to shower. He found her sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, a variety of locks and a stopwatch spread out around her. She was still dressed in nothing but the shirt she had slept in, her long pale legs stretched out in front of her.

"Parker, it's almost noon," he said by way of announcing his presence. Not that he was under any kind of delusion to think that he could sneak up on her, well aware that the thief's situational awareness rivaled his own.

"Does that mean it's lunch time?" she asked hopefully, not looking up from the lock she was working. When it opened with a click she looked at the stopwatch and grinned; she had shaved another quarter-second off of her best time.

"No. Well, yes. Almost," he conceded, "but what I mean is, why aren't you dressed yet?"

Parker looked down at herself. She was completely covered up; she didn't know why Eliot was getting all huffy. "I _am_ dressed."

"You're not wearing pants, Parker."

"You're not wearing a shirt, but you don't see me judging," she countered.

"I was working out."

"Obviously. You're all sweaty," she shrugged, clearly having no idea what that had to do with anything.

"Are you planning on getting dressed in something other than that, today?" Eliot asked again, leadingly.

"Am I going somewhere?" she asked, her brow scrunched up in confusion.

Now Eliot was confused. "Are you going somewhere?"

Parker cocked her head to the side, clearly considering his question. "No," she said finally, picking up another lock and resetting the stopwatch. "I don't think so."

It took Eliot a beat to realize that Parker apparently thought that that was the end of the conversation. "Go put on some pants, Parker." Phrasing it as a suggestion hadn't worked, so he tried a flat-out order.

"Why? I'm not going anywhere, so I don't need pants."

"You can't just sit around in your pajamas all day." Her pajamas, his shirt, it was all just semantics at this point.

"Why not?" she countered.

"Because you just can't!"

"Well, that's stupid. It just means there's less laundry to do at the end of the day," she said reasonably. "Besides, you know what they say."

The hitter looked up at the ceiling like he was praying for strength, or possibly deliverance. He didn't want to ask, but he had to know. "No, Parker," he sighed. "What do they say?"

"Home is where the pants aren't," she informed him with a grin.

Eliot scrubbed a hand down his face. "Okay. One, absolutely no one says that, Parker. Two, this is my home, not yours, so you should be wearing pants. And three, the phrase is, 'home is where the _heart is_ _._ '"

Parker completely disregarded his first two points and zeroed in on the third. "Home is where the heart is?" she repeated, her face scrunched up, reminding him of the time he'd been baking and she swiped the container of vanilla extract, thinking that if a little tasted good in cake, a big swig of it straight from the bottle must be even better. "No, that doesn't sound right."

"I assure you, that's right."

"It doesn't even make sense," she said, shaking her head. "Your heart is in your chest, so you're always with your heart, which would mean you're always home. And I know that's not true. Unless you took your heart out of your chest, but then you'd be dead. Unless you had a heart transplant and kept your old heart in a jar, then I suppose you could leave your heart at home. That would be so cool, but that seems like an awfully small demographic for them to have their own saying about it."

"Not your physical heart, Parker," Eliot huffed. "It's a metaphor. It means your home is with whatever you love and care about the most."

"So my home is with my money?" Parker asked, looking even more confused, trying to reconcile the logistics of 'home' being spread across banks and vaults scattered around the world.

Eliot threw his hands up, conceding defeat. "I'm gonna go take a shower," he announced spinning on his heel.

"And then lunch after?!" she called at his retreating back.

"Whatever!" he growled in the way that Parker knew meant that she was getting what she wanted.

Grinning to herself, Parker lined her locks up for a relay and picked up her stop watch. This time she would pick them with her eyes closed.

COMPROMISE: Parker was allowed to live a pants-free lifestyle within the confines of Eliot's home.

RULE: There are certain activities in which pants are compulsory. The list of such activities could be amended or added to at Eliot Spencer's leisure. Said list included, but was not limited to such things as leaving the condo for any reason, going up to the rooftop garden, and whenever she was working out in the home gym with Eliot. Since for some reason that Parker couldn't figure out, Eliot was extremely averse to teaching her any new fighting or grappling moves if she wasn't wearing pants.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

"I'm gonna go to the farmers' market, if you want to come," Eliot offered, as he and Parker walked out of McRory's, their work on the job done for the day.

Sophie had left twenty minutes earlier, talking about some new boots she had her eye on, Hardison was on his laptop hard at work creating the identities they would need for the con tomorrow, and Nate… well, Nate was doing what he did best; drinking and plotting. Not in the mood to watch the mastermind do either of those things, or even worse, listen to Hardison talk about how brilliant he was, Eliot had announced he was leaving and Parker had wordlessly followed.

"No, that's okay," Parker declined.

Eliot couldn't help being a little surprised at her reply. When she'd followed him out of the bar, he had assumed he was going to have a Parker-shaped shadow for the rest of the day.

Plus, the last time he had gone to the farmers' market she had invited herself along, much to his dismay. He had been sure it was going to end in nothing but trouble, and had made her promise to be on her best behavior the whole drive over and swear not to steal anything while they were there. His concern had only doubled after they had arrived, when he'd turned around to ask her a question about her dinner preferences and discovered that she had disappeared into the crowd while his back had been turned.

He'd completed his shopping as quickly as possible, keeping an eye out for his wayward thief, hoping he could track her down before she caused too much trouble. He was a regular at this particular market and all his favorite vendors knew him by name. Well, they knew him by one of his alias's names, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he didn't want to have to find a new place to shop.

It turned out, however, that all his worrying had been for nothing when he eventually found Parker holding a shopping bag, deep in conversation with a local apiarist. They were discussing all of the advantages and benefits of using local raw honey instead of store bought. He didn't even mind when she'd all but demanded he buy a box of beeswax candles, some hand balm, and of course, several jars of honey.

When he'd asked her about the shopping bag he'd found her with on the walk back to the car, she had showed him the salted caramel and chocolate-covered pretzels she had _bought_ \- thank you very much - and the receipt to prove it. Then she really surprised him by pulling several cloth sacks out of the bag.

"What are those?" he'd asked.

"I bought them for you!" she said clearly excited about her purchase. "They're reusable hot/cold packs. This one has foxes, and this one has raccoons which are my favorite, because they're the thieves of the animal world, and look! This one has rubber duckies on it!" She shook it in his direction. "Quack quack, I'm gonna help sore Eliot, quack quack." She shoved the pack in his face, "Sniff it! It smells really good."

Eliot grabbed her wrist before she could accidentally punch him in the nose, but did take a tentative sniff. She was right, it did smell good. He was able to distinguish peppermint, eucalyptus, lavender and lemon verbena. "Thanks darlin', that's real… thoughtful."

Parker beamed at the praise, and practically skipped back to the car.

He'd purposely chosen not to ask her how she'd paid for them, since he knew for a fact that she never carried money. He'd take his victories where he could.

Back in front of McRory's, Eliot shook off the memory. "You sure?" he asked again, since this time he actually wouldn't have minded taking her along.

"Yeah, I already have plans," Parker revealed vaguely, before turning and walking away without so much as a goodbye.

Eliot watched her disappear around the corner, until he realized that he looked like an idiot standing by himself in the middle of the sidewalk. Shaking himself out of it, he headed for his truck, remembering that he had plans of his own.

It was a few hours later when he was letting himself into his condo, arms laden with reusable canvas bags full of groceries. He'd only taken a few steps past the entryway before he realized something was wrong. On first glance, nothing was amiss. But the honed instincts that had kept him alive his whole adult life told him that there was someone else already inside his home.

Senses on high alert, he left the groceries on the floor and began silently moving through the condo, watching for any trace of the intruder. He paused in the kitchen only long enough to pull a knife out of the butcher block, before continuing to systematically clear rooms.

Every room and closet was empty, until all that was left to check was the master bedroom. When he silently pushed the door open, he started to realize that maybe things weren't quite what he was anticipating. Because his intruder was definitely in the en-suite bathroom. And while he'd had plenty of people lay in wait to try and kill him, none of them had ever used his bathtub while they did it. If the steam pouring out of the cracked doorway and the distinctive sounds of the jacuzzi jets were any indication.

Leaving the knife on his dresser since he was now pretty confident he wasn't going to need it, he pushed open the bathroom door and found Parker lounging in his whirlpool tub, completely submerged in an absurd amount of bubble bath, only her head, blonde hair piled in a messy bun on top of it, visible.

"Hey, Sparky," Parker drawled without opening her eyes, sounding utterly relaxed. "How was the farmers' market?"

It took Eliot a few moments to put together any kind of response. He was still stuck on the fact that Parker had now escalated to breaking and entering while he wasn't even home. And then she had the nerve to take advantage of _his personal_ bathroom.

"I thought you said you had plans," he ground out between clenched teeth.

"I did," she replied. "You're looking at them."

"Your plans were to take a bath in _my_ tub?" he asked, feeling his blood pressure rising.

"Mhmm," she hummed her assent, unrepentantly.

Eliot opened his mouth and tried to say about ten different things at once, but all he eventually got out was, " _Why_?!"

"Would you just come in and shut the door," Parker asked, finally cracking one eye open, totally unaffected by the glare he was leveling at her. "You're letting out all the hot air."

" _No_!"

Parker rolled her eyes and used her toes to turn the tap on, topping off her bath with hot water. If he was going to let all the warm air out, she would just make more of it.

"Damnit Parker!" he exclaimed, fully entering the bathroom to angrily shut the water off again.

That finally got Parker's attention." _Hey_!"

"What are you doing in here?! There's a tub in the other bathroom!"

"But your tub is _amazing_ ," she said, as if that explained it all.

Which actually, it kind of did. The first thing Eliot had done when he'd bought the condo was to renovate the kitchen and the master bathroom. He'd spent the vast majority of his adult life living a spartan lifestyle with just the barest of amenities, and on occasion even less than that. He could certainly survive on daily five-minute cold showers, if that was all that was available, but now he had finally reached a point in his life where he didn't have to. When it seemed as though the team was actually going to settle in Boston for a while, Eliot had decided to take advantage of his millions for once and went all out. As a hitter, and one who was only getting older, his top-of-the-line shower and tub were some of the best investments he'd ever made. He could still take the same punishment he could ten years ago, but being able to soak away his sore muscles in a whirlpool tub sure made his recovery time a lot faster and easier. And if they ever ended up having to burn Boston like they had LA, the upgrades would only help his resale value.

"Your shower is just as awesome," Parker added, sweeping up a handful of bubbles off the top of her bath water and blowing them in Eliot's direction. "I didn't even know you could put all those shower heads in the walls like that."

"You were in my _shower_ , too?!" he growled unimpressed, as he wiped the suds from his shirt.

"Of course," Parker gave him that look that always made him feel like he was being the unreasonable one. "I didn't want to soak in dirty water."

That… made sense actually. He would give her that one.

"Would you just get out of my bathroom, already!"

"Fine," Parker shrugged. "My fingers are all pruney anyways."

Completely heedless of her nudity as always, Parker pulled the drain and stood to climb out of the tub.

"Jesus, Parker, I'm standing right here," Eliot growled, as he grabbed her a towel and blindly handed it in her direction.

"Geez, first it's 'get out of the tub, Parker', then it's 'what are you doing getting out of the tub, Parker'," she grumbled, taking the offered towel and drying off. "You're full of mixed messages today. Usually the farmers' market puts you in a better mood. You like to be judgmental of other people's produce."

Eliot scoffed, but couldn't in good conscience tell her she was wrong. "My mood was fine until I came home to find you trespassing in my tub!"

Parker just rolled her eyes. "You can turn back around. I'm all covered up," she informed him as she wrapped the towel around her torso, tucking in one corner so it would stay up on its own. "I don't know why you do that."

"Do what?" he asked warily.

"Turn around or close your eyes whenever I'm naked. You and Hardison both do it. I know I don't have anything that you haven't seen before," she said with a delicate shrug of her shoulders. "And pretty much every other man I've gotten naked in front of has liked looking."

Eliot once again felt that urge to ask for names so he could personally deliver some dental work. "It's not about what I have or haven't seen, Parker. It's about respect."

He could practically see Parker turning this information over in her head. "So you don't look at me when I'm naked, because you _respect me_?" she asked, her head cocked curiously to one side.

"Yes darlin', because I respect you," he confirmed, wishing she didn't sound so surprised by this revelation.

"But you didn't even look on the Dubenich job," she recalled. "We'd just met. You didn't know anything about me. Except that you thought I was crazy."

"I still think you're crazy," he retorted, with a fond sort of smirk. "That hasn't changed. But even before I met you, I knew you by reputation. Back then, I respected you as a thief and a professional. Now, I respect you as a person."

"Huh," was all she said as she mulled that over. "But you still respect me as a thief, right?"

Eliot had to resist the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose to stave off the tension headache he felt building behind his eyes. The priorities of this woman would never cease to amaze him. "Of course I do, Parker."

A wide smile spread across Parker's face, "I think that's one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me," she said. "I'll go get dressed now."

She paused when she passed him on her way out of the bathroom, leaning in to plant a kiss on his cheek, so quick that he nearly missed it. And then she was gone, as though she had never been there at all.

COMPROMISE: Parker would show that she respected Eliot as a person by not breaking into his condo when he wasn't home, unless he knew beforehand that she was going to be there.

RULE: Parker could use Eliot's amazing bathroom, as long as she asked first. But she wasn't allowed to use bubble bath anymore because it wasn't good for the jets.

* * *

A/N So there we have it, like I said this is the first half of the chapter so there will be more rules and compromises next time ;) So until then you can come hang out with me on tumblr where you can find me there as danimydear where I'll be mourning the fact that they're taking leverage of netflix...

So yeah, I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween and please let me know what you think!


	4. Are Rules and Compromises

A/N I hope you all are ready for chapter 4! As promised this is actually the second half of the last chapter... it's the longest chapter yet so here it is I hope you enjoy it!

Once again my thanks go to Alexandra926 who puts up with far more whining from me than any one person should have to...

* * *

Eliot only had one good nerve left, and Parker was tap dancing all over it.

It didn't help that he was nursing a minor concussion and several cracked ribs, courtesy of an angry South African mercenary wielding a 2x4, from their last job. Add that to the fact that on the flight back to Boston, he'd somehow gotten stuck in the row behind Hardison, who had managed to find himself sitting next to his geeky soulmate. All the meditation in the world hadn't been able to block out the two of them babbling on about whatever the hell an MMORPG was for the last four and a half hours of the flight.

And now that he was home, all he wanted to do was take a shower, sit down on his couch with a beer and an ice pack on his ribs, and watch the game in relative peace and quiet. He'd managed to get the first part done, but when he walked out into the living room to let Parker know that the shower was free, he couldn't just sit down and relax like he wanted to, because he

had to clean up the mess she had managed to create in the twenty minutes he'd been out of the room.

First there was her boots, which were sitting in the middle of the room just asking to be tripped over. Her jacket was draped over a barstool, instead of hung on the hook by the door fifteen feet away, which he had installed for that very purpose. Her dirty gear bag was sitting in the middle of his dining table. The coffee table was completely covered in a newspaper that Parker had ripped apart, apparently in search of the crossword, if the half-finished puzzle sitting on the couch was any indication. He didn't even know where she had found a physical newspaper, since he'd been with her since the moment they got off the plane and he'd never seen her grab it. And there was a mostly-finished bowl of cereal balanced precariously on the arm of his leather sofa.

But what really made his eye twitch were the glasses.

The freaking drinking glasses.

He found one glass on the kitchen counter next to the fridge, a mug on the breakfast bar, and yet another glass on the floor next to the couch. How anyone could manage to use three glasses in less than half an hour was completely beyond him. It had become something of a running battle between the two of them. It seemed like he was forever picking up dirty cups and mugs that Parker left scattered all over the condo, only for her to complain that she was still using them. But no one needed _that_ many glasses.

He'd just finished setting the room to rights and finally sat down on his couch, when Parker emerged from the hallway, dressed in yet another one of his stolen shirts, a pair of thick woolen socks, and with her wet hair piled up on her head in a towel turban. He didn't give her more than a cursory glance when she sat down next to him on the couch.

"Hey, where's my cereal?" she asked, when she noticed it was gone.

"There were like two bites left," he said gruffly, not looking away from the TV. "I put it in the sink."

"But I wasn't done with it," she sighed. "I was gonna have another bowl."

"Then get a new one, Parker!" he said, exasperated.

"Did you get rid of my glass too?" she asked accusingly, when she noticed that too was missing.

"Which one?" he ground out, gripping his bottle of beer so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. "You had three of them going."

"They were for different drinks," she replied, as if it was obvious. "One was for milk, one was water, and the mug was for tea."

"And you needed all three at the same time!?"

"Duh. I can't mix them. That would be gross," she informed him, as she went back into the kitchen to pour herself another bowl of the cereal that he kept specifically for her.

Eliot didn't say anything and simply clenched his jaw when she walked back into the living room carrying another bowl and two more glasses, filled with milk and water respectively.

"Why are you so cranky tonight?" Parker asked with her mouth full, as she dug into her cereal. More curious, than put-off by his attitude. "Is your concussion worse than you said it is? Should I be making sure you don't fall asleep or something?"

"Don't do that!" He raised his arm to roughly bat her hand away when she reached out to poke the lump he had right at his hairline, but otherwise didn't answer her question.

Instead, he sat and stewed. He was trying but failing to focus on the sports highlights playing on the TV, instead of Parker's crunching in his ear. When she finally finished, he tried to keep his cool when she put her dirty dishes on the coffee table he'd _just_ cleared off.

"If you're done, go put them in the sink," he told her, with a carefully measured calm.

"Yeah, I will in a bit," she said dismissively, not sure yet if she was done with cereal for the night.

" _Now_ , Parker."

"I'll clean up before I go to bed," she replied, not sure what the big deal was.

She knew she had a habit of spreading out during the day, but she always picked up after herself before she went to sleep. It was part of her routine and Eliot had never complained about it before. Which is why Parker was taken aback when Eliot lurched to his feet, threw his cold pack onto the the coffee table before roughly snatching the dishes from where she'd left them, ceramic clinking angrily against glass.

"Damn it Parker!" he said, storming over to the kitchen. "How hard is it to just put the damned dishes in the sink when you're done with them!?" he shouted, dropping the last glass so hard that it broke against the bottom of the stainless steel sink.

"Because I wasn't done with it!" she shouted right back, following him into the kitchen. "And now we're gonna have an odd number of glasses!" Parker exclaimed, throwing her hands up in annoyance.

" _We_? What _we_?" Eliot exploded. " _You_ don't live here! If you don't like the way I keep _my_ house, you know where the door is. In fact, I think you should leave."

"What?" Parker asked, her voice small and shocked.

"I said, _I don't want you here Parker_!" he shouted, spinning away from the sink to face her. "Get out of my house! _**Leave**_!"

Parker flinched back as though he had physically struck her.

As soon as he saw the look on her face, Eliot instantly regretted his words. Parker _never_ physically recoiled from him. Not her, not ever. But despite the fact that not even so deep-down he knew that he was being the asshole in this situation, that he was blowing things out of proportion, he wasn't ready to let go of his anger, irrational as it was.

Not that she gave him the chance to apologize, even if he had been so inclined. Without another word she turned and fled, the guest bedroom door slamming behind her. With an irritated sigh, he turned to carefully clean the broken glass out of his sink before it could destroy his garbage disposal. While he was there he washed and dried the rest of the dishes in the sink, and by the time he was putting the last clean glass back in the cupboard, he felt a lot calmer. And when he went back to the living room to retrieve his cold pack and realized it was one of the ones that Parker had bought him - raccoons, because they're nature's thieves - he knew he had to go talk to her and make things right.

Knocking on the guest room door, he waited for any kind of response. "Parker?" he called through the door. "Come on Parker, open the door. I'm sorry, okay?" the words tasted bitter in his mouth. He hated apologizing, but he knew that this time he was in the wrong. "I was being an asshole. I do that sometimes."

Leaning his head against the jamb, he listened for any kind of movement or indication that Parker had heard him, but there was nothing but silence. Of course that's all there would be unless she wanted to make noise.

"C'mon, darlin'," he wheedled, "come talk to me." When there was still no reply, he set his hand on the knob. "I'm coming in," he warned, before testing to see if the door was locked. It wasn't.

Pushing the door open, he saw the reason why Parker hadn't responded. She wasn't there. The open window and the carelessly abandoned shirt draped over the foot of the bed were the only signs she had been there at all.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the flannel shirt, still warm from where she had been wearing it just a few minutes earlier. Parker had finally decided to listen to him for once. He'd told her to leave and she had.

But instead of making him happy, it just made him feel like shit.

Eliot had half-expected Parker to simply show up the next day like nothing had ever happened, and they could both just get on with their lives. Or maybe that's just what he'd been hoping would happen. But she didn't appear the next day, or the following day, or in any of the days of the two weeks before Nate found them their next job. It was the longest that she'd stayed away since she'd started splitting her time between her place and his. He could only conclude that Parker had taken his impetuous and angry words to heart.

He tried to tell himself that he should be pleased. Despite the way it had gone down, he could finally get back to the solitary life he'd enjoyed before Parker's near-constant presence had turned it upside-down. Quite frankly, he should have been grateful for her absence. As a self-professed loner, he should have been thrilled to have his personal space back. After all, he only put up with her incessant hanging around for her sake. It wasn't like _he_ got anything out of the arrangement, other than a headache. Right?

However, instead of being relieved that she was gone, he was mostly just annoyed at the leftovers that were piling up in his fridge, because he had become so accustomed to cooking for two. And it irritated him that watching sports wasn't as entertaining without Parker throwing popcorn and hurling wildly imaginative insults at the TV at every bad play or call. He knew that she was mainly just responding to his reactions, since she had never shown much interest in learning the actual rules of the games, but it amused him anyways. He didn't even want to count the number of times he'd started to make a comment about whatever he was watching on TV, or ask what she wanted for dinner, only to remember that she wasn't there. And it really pissed him off that he was having a hard time falling asleep at night, wondering if Parker was sleeping okay, wherever she was.

He contemplated once or twice trying to track her down at her warehouse, or wherever else she might be holed up. But a combination of knowing that if she didn't want to be found she wouldn't be, and his pride stopped him. He was _Eliot Spencer_ , he literally hurt people for a living; the fact that he'd hurt Parker's _feelings_ shouldn't be keeping him up at night. It took him longer than he wanted to admit, to figure out that the reason he was having such a hard time with it was because he hadn't hurt someone he had actually cared about in years.

Regardless, he couldn't deny the relief he'd felt when he'd gotten the call from Nate that they had a job. He'd finally see Parker again, and at the very least he'd have a chance to apologize and hopefully set things right. He told himself that it was because they still had to work together, so it was just practicality that mandated that things should be straight between them. For the sake of the team, of course. The fact that his chest ached at the very idea that she was out there somewhere, hurt and angry with him, had nothing to do with it.

When he walked into the loft, he immediately noticed that Parker was already there, sitting on the couch next to Hardison with that special glazed-over look in her eyes that she got whenever whatever he was talking about got too nerdy for Parker's taste. He figured that he could try to pull her away and kill two birds with one stone, by rescuing her from the hacker's technobabble and getting her alone to apologize. But before he had the chance, Sophie walked through the door just a couple beats behind him, and Nate walked down the spiral staircase, wasting no time in telling Hardison to run it.

Eliot didn't have any better luck trying to corner Parker for the next three days, either. He didn't think anyone else on the team noticed, because she wasn't doing anything overt. But it seemed like every time he got close to her, she found a reason to be elsewhere. When they did have to be in the same room, she managed to keep as much space between them as possible. Instead of perching on the arm of his chair during briefings, like she had taken to doing recently, she made sure to put both Sophie and Nate between them. Instead of fighting with Hardison for shotgun when Eliot grabbed the keys to Lucille, she wordlessly slipped into the back. When she _had_ to speak to him for the job, she wouldn't even look him in the eye. Instead, she looked right past him, focusing on some point on the far wall. The only time that they had been alone together, they had been in the middle of phase one of the con, with everyone on comms. And as much as he wanted to talk to Parker, this was not a conversation he was willing to have with the rest of the team in his ear.

If it had been any other woman, Eliot might have thought that she was punishing him. Purposely trying to make him feel worse while not even giving him a chance to apologize. But he knew better. Mind games just weren't Parker's style. Frankly, at this point he kind of wished they were, because the alternative was that she just genuinely didn't want to talk to him, or be alone with him, or even be near him, given the choice. And it bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

At a loss for any other ideas on how to extend an olive branch, Eliot announced that he was going to make dinner, then ran to the store, picking up all the ingredients for the coconut cashew chicken curry that he knew was one of Parker's favorites. This was better, he decided. He wasn't good with talking through his feelings anyway, he was much better at cooking them. He just hoped that Parker would understand what he was trying to say enough to at least talk to him.

When he got back to the loft with his groceries, Nate and Parker had spread blueprints over the dining room table, deep in discussion over the next phase of the plan. He couldn't help but keep an eye and half of his attention on them while he did his meal prep at the peninsula.

She was going over, in detail, every possible route of egress from the office building that they would be breaking into, categorized by each member of the team's skill set and ability level. He always enjoyed watching her when she was in her element, confident and competent, doing what she did best.

"Ohh, is that curry I smell?" Sophie asked eagerly, emerging from upstairs, drawn down by the smell of dinner. "You haven't made that in forever."

She wasn't wrong. It didn't make the usual rotation because Hardison had weird texture issues with coconut, and Nate really only tolerated most Indian food. But Parker always went back for seconds and sometimes even thirds, and this dinner was for her, so Nate and Hardison could deal. But he wasn't about to tell Sophie that.

"It's almost ready, if you want to start grabbing bowls," he said, instead.

Over at the table, Nate and Parker took that as their cue to start cleaning up the table.

"I'm going to open a bottle of wine," Sophie announced, as she pulled the dishware out of the cabinet. "Is anyone else going to have some?

"There's a riesling in there that will pair nicely," Eliot told her, by way of answering.

"Parker?" Sophie prompted, knowing there was no use asking Hardison who would undoubtedly be drinking orange soda, and Nate who already had a tumbler of whiskey in his hand.

"Uh... no," Parker said, from behind the armful of rolled up blueprints she was carrying. "I'm not staying."

"What?" Eliot's head snapped up from where he was chopping cilantro, scallions, and cashews for garnish.

"I have plans already." She addressed her answer to Sophie, despite the fact that it was Eliot who'd asked. "I'll see you tomorrow!" Before anyone could respond, she had dropped the blueprints on the couch, grabbed her jacket and was out the door.

Eliot couldn't do anything but watch her go, letting out a defeated sigh.

"So tell me, Eliot," Sophie began, once the four remaining team members were sitting around the dinner table eating. "What's going on with you and Parker?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Eliot lied, stabbing at his dinner with his fork with more force than strictly necessary.

"Sure you don't," Sophie said lightly, as she took a sip of her wine. "Because she always refuses to so much as look you in the eye. Just like you always spend the entire night watching her when you think no one else is looking."

"You're seeing things," Eliot insisted gruffly, sticking to his story.

Sophie wasn't deterred, "And you _always_ go out of your way to make Parker's favorite for dinner, which she pointedly doesn't stay for."

"Yeah man, I don't think Parker's never not stayed when there is food to be had," Hardison agreed, carefully picking the chicken out of his bowl. He'd never claim to be able to read people or situations like Sophie could, but even he knew that Parker not staying for dinner was weird.

"She said she had something to do," Eliot reminded them, not believing the words coming out of his mouth any more than they did. "She's allowed to have plans."

"I don't care what's going on between you two," Nate interjected. "Just fix it. I can't be having tension on the team like this." He'd also noticed that there was something _off_ between his hitter and his thief over the past few days, but he had planned on giving it a little more time and gathering more information before deciding if he needed to get involved. But since Sophie had already gone ahead and brought it up...

Eliot dropped his fork on his plate, suddenly losing his appetite. "Sure, because the only tension that's allowed on this team is the tension that _you_ cause, right Nate?" he said wryly, not having any of the mastermind's hypocrisy right now. He pushed back from the table and crossed the room to grab his jacket. "And there _is_ no tension, because _nothing_ happened!" he growled, before slamming out of the loft.

He was getting into his truck when something told him to look up. Most people would never have noticed her, or if they had, would have explained it away as a trick of the fading light causing odd shadows, but Eliot knew better. He only hoped that she didn't spot him in the parking lot and make her escape before he could get up there.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he got to the roof and Parker was still sitting on the ledge, her feet dangling over the side. She didn't turn around, but the tension that settled in her shoulders told him that she knew he was there.

"I thought you said you had something to do," he said as he crossed the roof, stopping about ten feet behind her.

"I'm waiting for the sun to set," she replied.

He chuckled lowly in his chest, because of course Parker wasn't simply enjoying watching the sun setting behind the Boston skyline. She was waiting for the cover of darkness before she continued on with her evening plans.

"Can I join you?" he asked.

The shrug she gave wasn't exactly a yes, but it wasn't a no either, so he closed the last bit of distance between them and carefully sat down next to her. He wasn't thrilled to be sitting on the edge of the roof. It wasn't that he was scared of heights like Hardison was, he'd willingly jumped out of planes too many times for that to be true, but he didn't embrace them like Parker did either. If he had to categorize it, he would say he just had a healthy respect for them, or at least for what the sudden stop at the bottom could do to a human being. But if this is where Parker was willing to talk to him, then this was where he'd sit.

"You've been avoiding me." It was a statement; not a question.

"No, I haven't," Parker denied. "I've just... been staying out of your way."

"That's basically the _definition_ of avoiding someone, Parker."

She didn't bother to respond, and they sat in silence for awhile, Eliot watching the sky change colors while Parker absently kicked her heels against the brick façade.

"Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you," Eliot finally said, as the street lights began flickering on, somehow finding it easier to apologize as night descended on the city.

"What?" Parker asked, glancing his direction for the first time since he sat down, sounding genuinely confused.

"I'm sorry that I yelled at you," he repeated, not sure how to make it any clearer. "I was in a shitty mood. It wasn't your fault, but I took it out on you and I shouldn't have done that. I was an asshole and I'm sorry."

It was hard to tell with her face mostly obscured in shadow, but Eliot was pretty sure she was giving him her 'I have no idea what you're talking about, but it sounds dumb' face, which he figured didn't bode well for his apology.

"You always yell at me," she said dismissively, clearly unconcerned about that fact. "You yell at everyone. Sophie says that your preferred method of communication is just set at a higher decibel than everyone else's."

Eliot wasn't sure how to take that, but he had bigger concerns at the moment. "Then why-"

"Usually you don't mean it," she continued, looking back out at the city.

"But I didn't-"

"Yes, _you did_ ," she interjected bitterly, before he could even get the whole sentence out. "Everyone _always_ means it."

Now he was confused. "Parker, what are you-"

"You said _you didn't want me_. That you wanted me to _leave_ ," the harsh words burst out of her chest in a rush, her voice thick with hurt and betrayal.

Eliot felt his stomach drop. "I didn't mean it though, and I shouldn't have said it," he assured her quickly.

She pulled her legs up, and Eliot was afraid she was going to bolt, but she simply drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins, hugging them tight. "It always happens this way," she confessed, not much above a whisper. "Not all the homes I was placed in were bad. Most were," she shrugged her shoulders, "but there were a couple that I wouldn't have minded staying at. Those were the ones where I tried to be good. To be _normal_."

An uncomfortable clawing feeling grew in his chest as the pieces of what he had done came together. "Parker, sweetheart-"

"It didn't matter though," she continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Eventually they'd make the call to my case worker. I wasn't a good fit. They didn't want me anymore. It was time for me to leave. Even Archie sent me away eventually. He didn't want to take me to his real home, to his _real_ family." Parker looked over and even in the dark, Eliot could see her sad, watery eyes. "I don't want to leave anymore."

Eliot had done a lot of bad things in his life. He had more than his share of regrets, but it had been a long time since he'd felt this much like scum on the bottom of someone's shoe. Carefully, because they were still sitting on the edge of a building, he reached over and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her. She stiffened at first, but it only took a moment for her to relax into his side when he started to speak.

"No one's making you go anywhere darlin', I promise you that. Least of all me," he said with conviction. "And if you tried to go for the wrong reasons, I'd hunt you down and bring you back. I'm the retrieval specialist; it's what I do. The only way you're leaving, is if we're all leaving together. You belong here with all of us. We need you here; we _want_ you here." He paused, considering his next words, " _I want you here_."

Parker pulled out of his grasp, "But you said-"

This time he cut her off, "I know what I said. I was an idiot. As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back. I tried to go after you, but you had already left. I missed you while you were gone," he admitted, meeting her gaze directly, making sure she knew he was being sincere.

"Really?" she asked, as though she wasn't completely sure she believed him.

"Really," he confirmed. "I got used to having you around. Now it's too quiet."

Parker didn't respond verbally, but she let her head rest heavily on his shoulder, and Eliot knew that he was forgiven. They sat like that for awhile longer, just taking in the night.

"I'm hungry," she announced, eventually breaking the companionable quiet.

"I already made you dinner," Eliot pointed out dryly. "You didn't eat it."

"Everybody is gonna make comments if we go back inside for curry, aren't they," Parker sighed, her stomach grumbling, regretting that she had turned down one of her favorite meals.

"Yeah, they would," Eliot confirmed, as he carefully climbed to his feet and waited for her to do the same. "But I made enough that you can have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Come on. Let's go back to my place and I'll make you french toast."

Parker gasped and her eyes went wide. "You'll make me _brinner_?"

As much as she thought breakfast foods were the best option no matter the time of day, Eliot had an almost dogmatic disapproval of the concept of breakfast for dinner.

"Just this once," he warned, even as the corners of his mouth curled up in a smile at Parker's obvious excitement.

"Will you make whipped cream?" she asked hopefully, following him back into the building with a bounce in her step.

"Yeah," he dropped an arm over her shoulders as they made their way to the elevator, "I can do that."

"And bacon?"

"Sure, why not."

"And hash browns?"

"Extra crispy, just like you like them."

COMPROMISE: Parker would try to refrain from using more than one glass at a time, and Eliot wouldn't put it in the sink unless he was sure that she was done with it.

RULE: Eliot might tell Parker to get out of a room. He might tell her to leave him alone for awhile. But he would never, _ever_ , tell her she's not wanted.

* * *

A/N So there's chapter 4! I truly hope you enjoyed it! And please let me know what you thought! I also want to give my sincere thanks to everyone who has taken the time to comment on the first three chapters, you guys keep me going when the muse doesn't feel like playing along :)


	5. A Bored Parker

A/N Hello hello! I'm back with the next chapter of Feels Like Home :) Like chapters three and four this is actually only the first half of what was planned to be one chapter, because once again the word count got absolutely out of control, even split in half this is the longest chapter yet... also because I split both chapters the time line gets a little fuzzy, so FYI these vignettes are happening concurrently/intermixed with the rules and compromises chapters... And as always a million thanks go out to Alexandra926 for taming my tenses and wrangling my run-ons

Alrighty then that's enough of me... I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Eliot knew there was several inconvertible truths in life.

Always mount a horse from the left side.

Never tell a Chechen that his sister has a nice smile.

Cooking a good cut of steak to well done should be a punishable crime.

And a bored Parker, is a dangerous Parker.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Eliot and Parker were having a fairly typical day off.

The job had gone later than expected the night before, and they hadn't trudged through Eliot's front door until the sun was rising in the sky. They had both wordlessly agreed that Parker would stay over through simple practicality, in that Eliot had been her ride and he lived closer to where they were working and they were both exhausted. Crawling into their respective beds so late meant they'd slept most of the morning away. It was only force of habit that had Eliot waking up before noon and it was the smell of breakfast food as he made brunch that had Parker stumbling into the kitchen, rubbing at her tired eyes and asking if he was making waffles.

After they'd eaten, they had made their way back to his home gym where they spent a couple of hours working on Parker's self-defense skills. Eliot was proud of the progress she'd made over the last few years since the first time he'd first taught her how to properly throw a punch way back when they were still in LA. Her gymnastic abilities gave her amazing flexibility and body memory, and that made her an excellent student to work with. Especially when it came to grappling. There were times that he honestly didn't know _how_ she got out of certain holds without breaking or dislocating something. But the way he figured, if it worked, it worked.

But now, Eliot had moved on to some solo work against his heavy bag, while Parker kept him company by literally hanging out, dangling from his chin-up bar, telling him all about some exhibit down in Philadelphia that had something she wanted to steal. To be honest, he was really only half-listening to her; Parker's rapid chatter of her detailed heist plans simply becoming a background counterpoint to the low thumping of his fists against his punching bag. He would have paid more attention if he thought she'd actually follow through on her plans. But as things stood now, he wasn't overly concerned. Because while they might have had today and possibly tomorrow off, since they were officially in the middle of The Stall, they had to be on call for the rest of the con to kick off at any moment. And despite the fact that sometimes he seriously wondered if Parker was actually magic, the way she seemed to just appear or disappear from thin air, there was no way that even she could get down to Philly, pull off a heist, and get back to Boston before the exhibit closed at the end of the week.

What did keep his attention was the fact that even after half an hour, she was just as solid as she had been when she'd first jumped up on the bar. He knew that in her position, his own hands and shoulders would have been screaming at him by now, but she showed zero signs of fatigue as she explained the best way to get past a Glen-Reeder 5400 alarm system with both heat and motion sensors. He hadn't even seen her adjust her grip. That wasn't to say that he wasn't already well aware that Parker was much stronger than she looked. Especially when it came to her upper body strength. She did hang from buildings by her fingertips for a living, after all. He couldn't help but be continually impressed by it, though.

Just a few weeks ago, they had been running surveillance on a mark that liked to work out in the park, and he and Parker were undercover as fellow fitness enthusiasts. In order to stay looking busy while keeping eyes on the mark who was doing tai chi under a nearby tree - poorly, he might add - they'd somehow ended up having a pull-up contest. And while he knew for a fact that that he was physically much stronger than Parker, there seemed to be no end to her endurance. Not only had he tapped out before she had, the only reason that she'd eventually stopped at all was that the mark had moved and they'd had to go jog after him.

His ego was healthy enough that he didn't really care that she had undeniably kicked his ass at their little contest. What was going to make him snap one day, however, was the fact that Hardison, who had been in the van at the time, not doing anything that resembled physical activity, would _not_ shut up about it.

He was lost in contemplation, wondering whether it was possible that Parker just didn't feel pain the same way most people did, or if maybe she had some weird genetic mutation where she just didn't produce the lactic acid that caused muscle fatigue, that he didn't even notice right away that she had stopped speaking.

"What's wrong, Parker?" he asked, when he glanced over and saw the dejected look on her face.

"I wanna go steal something," she pouted.

"Give it a day or two, and I'm sure Nate will have something for you to nab," he offered in consolation, throwing another combo at the bag.

"But I'm bored _now_ ," she said in a tone that was dangerously close to a whine.

That got Eliot's attention. He was pretty sure each member of their team had had an unfortunate experience with the aftermath of one of Parker's fits of boredom at one time or another.

He reached out with both hands to stop the punching bag's swing, before giving her his undivided attention. "It's a nice day. Go out and do something," he suggested, not really wanting a bored Parker wreaking havoc in his home. And it really _was_ a nice day; it seemed as though the harsh Boston winter was finally behind them and spring had officially arrived.

Parker just sighed, switched her grip and flipped backwards, hooking her knees over the bar and letting her arms dangle towards the floor. "It's an 'I don't want to be around people' day," she shrugged, which looked more than a little odd now that she was upside down.

"In case you haven't noticed, darlin'," he drawled, as he started peeling the tape from his hands, "I'm right here."

"Don't be silly," she scoffed. "You're Eliot, you don't count as people."

"Thanks, Parker," he said dryly.

"You're welcome," she chirped.

He just rolled his eyes and shook his head. Then, he had an idea.

"Come on, hop down and go put some shoes on," he told her.

"But I said I didn't want to go out," she frowned, locking her knees down on the bar harder, like she was afraid he was going to physically pull her down.

"We're not going _out_ , we're going _up_."

"The roof?" Now Parker was intrigued. She did like roofs, mostly jumping off of them. But one of the house rules was that she wasn't allowed to rappel down during the day, lest one of Eliot's neighbors see her and start asking questions. "Why?"

"Like I said, it's a nice day. And because you could use some Vitamin D," he told her.

"Huh?"

"Are you coming or not?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder just in time to see Parker execute a far more complicated dismount than was strictly necessary, landing silently as always. He gave her a minute to slip on some shoes and then they headed upstairs.

The private roof access was what had actually sold Eliot on this particular condo. He had plenty of space for a year-round greenhouse, as well as raised garden beds for the regular growing season, with just enough room left over for his grill and a small patio set.

He'd been using the greenhouse all winter, but the garden beds had been lying fallow since fall and it was going to take an afternoon of hard work to get them ready for spring planting. He figured that was as good of an activity as any to keep Parker busy for the day.

"Why do you have a plant shed?" Parker asked, as she followed him to the structure in the corner of the roof that she'd always ignored in the past.

"It's a greenhouse, Parker," he said, giving her his patented 'what's wrong with you' look.

"Ugh, it's hot in here," she complained, when she followed him inside.

"It's a _greenhouse_ ," he repeated. "It's supposed to be warm. That's the point. Or else everything would die in here during the winter. Besides, what are you complaining about? You think steam vents are an acceptable mode of travel."

"That's a _dry_ heat." Parker wrinkled her nose distastefully, "This is humid. Sticky."

Eliot wanted to know what part of _steam_ implied a _dry_ anything, but he knew any answer of Parker's would probably only lead to a headache and not much understanding. So he just sighed and let it go.

"It's good for the plants," he said instead, walking over to the small chest where he stored his gardening tools.

"Plants," she said slowly, like she was tasting the word on her tongue. "I still don't get the point." She wandered over to the swiss chard and pulled off one of the leaves, holding it up to the light like she might with a diamond to appraise its clarity.

"Leave that alone. This isn't a flower garden, Parker," Eliot said annoyed, as he dug around for the spare gardening fork that he knew was in there somewhere. "Everything in here is edible. The spinach you ate in the spanakopita I made last week," he said, pointing to a row of leafy greens. "The peppers you had in your omelette this morning. The tomatoes and eggplants I'm gonna use for the lasagna later."

"Oh, you're making lasagna?" Parker asked, perking up as she reburied the chard leaf so it was standing straight up in a bare patch of dirt in the middle of his green onions.

"I was thinking about it, but that's not the point," he said, trying to bring her back on topic, while making a mental note to grab the leaf when she wasn't looking. "The point is you've eaten pretty much everything in here at some point, and if you want to keep eating, maybe you should try to have a little more respect for what's happening in here."

He could see her turning it over in her mind, deciding how much credence she was going to give his words. "These are plants… with a purpose," she said, finally.

"Yeah, I guess that's a good way of putting it," Eliot shrugged, as he finally found what he was looking for. Gathering up the tools they needed, he herded Parker back outside. He handed her a three-pronged hand fork, a decision he immediately regretted when she promptly threaded her fingers through the tines and started making slashing motions through the air.

"Hey look, I'm Wolverine!"

"Damnit Parker, that's sharp!" he scolded, ripping it back out of her hand. "And you've been spending too much time with Hardison."

"So what are we doing out here?" she asked dubiously, ignoring his admonitions. "There's no plants, just boxes of dirt."

"That's the problem, they've been empty since last fall, so we gotta get 'em ready for spring planting," he explained, kneeling down next to the first box. "The soil's been compacted by snow and ice all winter. It needs to be turned over and aerated. Also, we need to pull out all the weeds and any other organic matter left over from last year," he said, demonstrating what needed to be done. He gave her back the tool he had confiscated earlier, "Here, give it a shot."

She looked a little doubtful as she took her first stab at it, but a small grin began to form at the sound of roots ripping as she raked the metal prongs through the soil. Soon enough she was swinging the fork with more enthusiasm than was was really called for. Before he knew it, dirt clods were flying in every direction, and Parker was occasionally letting out an evil sort of giggle that someone who didn't know her the way he did might find worrisome. But instead, Eliot just smirked at Parker's obvious enjoyment, before leaving her to it and going to start on another box. He had figured the inherent violence involved in turning over and preparing a garden bed would appeal to her.

They worked with minimal conversation for the next few hours, systematically working their way through the rows of boxes. Eliot was working faster mostly due to experience, but also because Parker was more focused on the destruction she was causing, than she was concerned with efficiency.

When he realized that he hadn't heard her cackle in a while, Eliot looked over his shoulder and spotted Parker sitting back on her heels, staring intently at something in her hand. "Whatcha got there?"

"What?" Parker asked, her head snapping up as though she had forgotten he was there. "Oh, it's a ladybug," she said, showing him.

"They're good for the garden," Eliot told her, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he watched the tiny red and black bug crawling across her palm. "They eat aphids and the like. And they're supposed to be good luck."

"I don't believe in luck," she replied absently, turning her hand over to give the little bug more room to move.

"Of course you don't," he said fondly, turning back to his aerating.

But Parker wasn't done with the conversation. "They call them ladybirds in England, which never made any sense to me. I mean, they're obviously bugs, not birds."

"If you wanna get technical, I think they're actually beetles," Eliot said with a shrug. "But I agree with you on the bird thing. The Brits always have to have weird words for things. You could try asking Sophie if she knows why. Maybe she'd have an answer for you." He doubted it, but it was worth a shot.

"But I guess it makes more sense than what they call them in Russia," she continued, as the little bug finally flew away. She watched it go and then went back to work.

Eliot turned to look at her when he realized that she wasn't planning on following that thought to its logical conclusion. He actually spoke conversational Russian, but he realized that he'd never needed to learn the word for ladybug and therefore had no idea what the translation was.

"What do they call them in Russia?" he prompted.

"God's little cows," she informed him.

For a moment his brain stuttered and he was sure he had misheard her. "God's little _cows_?" he repeated dubiously. "You're joking."

"Nope," she said simply.

He realized that she was, in fact, completely serious and all he could do was blink. "Why would they call them that? I mean at least birds fly, so I can kinda see the connection, but a cow? Did the person who came up with that one ever actually see a cow?!"

"It's the same thing in Polish and Welsh, too," she added.

"What _...why_?!" He couldn't wrap his head around how three such completely different languages could have come up with the same strange name.

Parker just nodded solemnly. "These are the questions that keep me up at night."

He had no doubts that she was telling the truth about that, as they both went back to work.

"So what do we do now?" Parker asked, when she'd finished clearing the last box.

"Now, we-" Eliot glanced over at Parker and quickly did a double take. "Now _you_ go back inside," he told her, amending what he had been about to say.

"What? Why? I'm helping!" she said defensively.

He crossed over to where Parker was standing and took her chin gently between two fingers, giving her face an evaluative once-over. "Because you're gettin' some color there, darlin," he said. "Your shoulders too. Gonna need to put on sunblock or something if you want to come up here again. Or at least wear a hat next time."

Parker looked down at her shoulder, repeatedly pressing down hard with her finger, watching her skin go from white back to a darkening pink where she was starting to burn. She was still doing it in the time it took him to wash off and put away the tools they were using.

"Stop that," he scolded, knowing it couldn't feel good, mentally rolling his eyes at the fact that at least his weren't the only injuries she liked to poke at. "Let's go downstairs before you get any worse."

"Aren't you going to actually plant something?" she asked curiously, even as she let herself be herded towards the stairs.

"Can't yet," he shrugged. "Wasn't actually planning on getting this done today, so I haven't been to the nursery to pick up the fertilizer I'm going to need to amend the soil."

"Why would you go to a nursery for fertilizer?" Parker asked, the very picture of confusion.

Eliot was equally confused until he realized where the communication breakdown was. "A _plant_ nursery Parker, not a _baby_ nursery," he clarified.

"Oh... yeah, that makes more sense. So what, they have baby plants?" she asked, heading into the kitchen for a glass of water.

"Among other things," he confirmed, chuckling to himself, shaking his head slightly as he leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms over his chest. He'd never cease to be both amazed and amused at how spotty and random Parker's knowledge base was. She knew the translation for ladybug in god only knew how many languages, but a nursery, _that_ was a mystery.

"Are you going to buy any baby plants?"

Eliot could only imagine what Parker was picturing a nursery must be like. "Uh, maybe. I have some seedlings in the greenhouse that I'll transplant, and seeds from last year. I'll probably take a look around and see if there's anything that jumps out at me."

"Could you grow cherries?" she asked hopefully, quickly downing the first glass and then filling it again, drinking that one slower. "I like cherries. Especially when they're covered in chocolate."

"Cherries grow on trees, Parker," Eliot informed her. When she didn't lose the expectant look on her face, he continued. "It's a roof… I can't… no… it's a _tree_. We could plant some strawberries," he offered, as an alternative. "I'll get you a terracotta planter and they could be your own special project. How about that?"

"Cool," she beamed, filling the water glass once more and offering it to Eliot. "Can I come with you?"

He almost told her that he could get his own water, but then mentally shrugged and took the proffered drink. "Where, to the nursery?" he asked, after gulping down half the glass. "I guess so."

"Awesome! I'll change and then we can go," she said, already disappearing down the hallway.

"Wait, Parker! Hold on." But she was already gone. "I didn't mean right now," Eliot said to the empty room. He glanced at the clock on the microwave. He supposed that they did have a couple of hours before the nursery closed. With a sigh he deposited the now empty glass in the sink and went to go change himself. So much for not leaving the house today.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

"Eliot!" Parker croaked pathetically from the couch in the living room, where she was doing her best impression of a blanket burrito.

Eliot's knife made a solid _thud_ as it connected with the wooden cutting board where he was currently deboning a whole chicken, parts of which would eventually become the second batch of chicken noodle soup that he'd made this week.

"What do you need, darlin'?" he called back.

"I'm bored," she whined. "Entertain me!"

"I'm not your dancing monkey, Parker! Watch TV!" he shouted back. "I'm kinda in the middle of something right now."

"There's nothing good on," she grumbled.

He found that hard to believe. Once Hardison had found out that yes, Eliot did have a TV, the hacker had gotten him set him up in style. "There's like six hundred channels. I'm sure there's something to watch."

"No, there isn't," she insisted, "and I'm _bored_."

Eliot sighed, put the knife down, and gave his hands a quick wash so he wouldn't track salmonella all over the place. Walking over to the couch, he stopped in front of a miserable-looking Parker with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

"What can I do for you, Parker?"

"I don't know," she said dejectedly. "I'm tired of just lying here watching TV. I want to _do_ something."

Eliot looked at her with sympathetic eyes. The first couple days, she had been so ill that she'd been content to just lay on the couch, sleeping more than she was awake, not entirely aware of what was going on around her. She'd been a fairly easy patient, simply eating and drinking what he put in front of her. Medicine had been a bit more of a struggle, since even as sick as she was, she tried to insist that she didn't do drugs. But even that she'd taken with a minimum of convincing. However, now it seemed that she was just well enough to realize how rotten she still felt, and was looking for a distraction.

He reached down to rest his hand on her forehead. She wasn't burning up like she had been, but she was definitely still running a low grade fever. "You're still warm, sweetheart," he told her, letting his hand sweep down to her cheek, where Parker unconsciously closed her eyes and leaned into his palm. "Which means your butt stays parked on this couch."

She attempted to huff to show her displeasure at that pronouncement, but it backfired and sent a wracking coughing fit through her body. Eliot helped her sit up and even rubbed her back until it passed.

"Can I have more orange juice?" she asked weakly, eyeing the empty glass on the coffee table.

"That I can do," he said, picking up the empty glass which was sitting between a still mostly-full glass of water and a half-empty mug of lukewarm tea.

He was carrying the glass back to the kitchen when his eyes landed on the portfolio case that was leaning against the wall near the front door. It was full of the art supplies that Parker had used a couple jobs back when she'd had to grift as a caricaturist of all things. The bag should have stayed at Nate's, but for some reason unbeknownst to Eliot, it had made its way to his place instead. However, now he was grateful because it seemed like the perfect solution. It was a nice quiet activity that could keep Parker busy, but not interfere with her recuperation.

When Eliot reappeared in front of her, with both her juice and the portfolio case, Parker's brow furrowed in confusion. "What's that for?" she asked with a sniffle.

"To give you something to do, besides watching TV," he explained, trying not to outwardly wince when she used the sleeve of the sweatshirt that she was currently wearing as a tissue. He wouldn't have cared, except for the fact that said sweatshirt was actually _his_.

"You want me to draw a caricature?" she questioned.

" _What_? No, Parker," he said, pinching the the bridge of his nose. "You can draw, or paint, or _whatever_ you want. You've got a talent for it, so use it."

"You think so?" she asked dubiously. She'd really only tested out her artistic abilities in the context of the job, never having really given it much thought outside of work.

"Yeah Parker, I do," he told her sincerely.

Parker didn't really seem to know how to take that, but when she shrugged and started pulling art supplies out of the case, he considered it a job well done and went back to the kitchen to finish what he'd started.

As he went back to methodically deboning the chicken, setting aside the carcass to make into stock, he let his mind wander back to how they had gotten to this point.

It had all started during their last job, which had taken them cross-country. When they'd landed in Arizona and met up at the rendezvous point, Parker had mentioned in off-handed disgust that the old man sitting next to her on the plane hadn't stopped coughing the entire flight. Nothing probably would have come from it, except that the con had unexpectedly paid off at the Grand Canyon at sunrise, and in one of the mastermind's more convoluted plans, it had necessitated Eliot and Parker staking out Yaki Point for several freezing predawn hours.

On the flight back to Boston that same evening, with them no longer having to pretend not to know each other, the group sat together. Eliot wound up sitting next to a strangely subdued Parker. His first indication that something was wrong with the normally hyperactive thief _should_ have been that instead of driving him crazy with her constant fidgeting, she simply pulled the hood of her jacket up around her face and stared listlessly out the window for the entire flight back to Logan. But he had chalked that up to it being a long day that he was feeling the effects of himself.

It wasn't until they were waiting for their luggage and he watched her miss her bag going around on the carousel for the third time, that he really took a good look at her and noticed her flushed face and glassy eyes.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, sidling up next to her. "Parker?" he snapped his fingers in front of her face when she continued to stare unseeingly at the luggage going around the conveyor belt.

"Huh?" she asked inelegantly, blinking at him slowly.

"You alright, there?" He reached over and rested the back of his fingers against her flushed cheek. "Damnit Parker, you're burning up. Why didn't you say something?"

"I'm fine," she insisted, though the way she slurred her words implied otherwise.

"Like hell you are," he grumbled. He steered her over to a nearby bench and left her sitting down, propped up against a pillar, with orders to stay put.

Despite the fact that he never checked luggage himself, Eliot always stuck around to help load up all the tech gear that Hardison insisted was necessary to bring with them every time they traveled and Sophie's ridiculous mountain of extraneous baggage that she swore were only the essentials. But after explaining the situation to the others, they quickly waved him off, trusting the hitter to get their sick teammate home in one piece. He grabbed her bag off the carousel, tossing it over his shoulder alongside his own carry-on, before going back to collect Parker from where he had left her.

"You ready to go, darlin'?" he asked, concerned by the fact that she was now listing dangerously to the left.

"Yeah," she said roughly, pushing herself to her feet with far less grace than he was used to seeing from the thief.

"Are you okay to walk to the car?" he asked worried, grabbing her firmly under the arm when she wobbled on her feet.

"Of course," she snapped, obstinately pulling her elbow out of his grasp.

Eliot just rolled his eyes and moved his hand to the small of her back to steady her in case she needed it, and led her towards the long term parking lot. He was just grateful that he'd chosen to drive himself to the airport, instead of riding with one of the others from Nate's like he sometimes did.

Once they got to the car, it didn't take Eliot long to get Parker installed in the front seat and for him to toss their bags in the back. By the time he was sliding behind the wheel and starting the ignition, Parker already had her head tilted back against the headrest with her eyes closed. He had thought she'd drifted off, which was why he was surprised when she spoke, just a few miles down the road.

"Just drop me off at my place," she said, without opening her eyes.

"You really _are_ crazy if you think I'm gonna just drop you off and leave you alone when you're in this kind of condition."

"I'll be fine. I can take care of myself," she said grumpily.

The mental picture of Parker all alone, curled up in bed in the middle of her big drafty warehouse, flashed across Eliot's mind. No one to check on her. No one to help her get better, or make sure she didn't get worse. No one to make sure she was eating. He actually didn't think she even had anything to eat at her place except for cereal. The whole idea was immediately dismissed as unacceptable.

"Don't care. I'm taking you home with me," he told her.

"I just want to be alone," she insisted.

It wasn't that he didn't understand her impulse. Like a wounded animal, she wanted to hide herself away while she was weak and vulnerable, unable to protect herself like she normally would. He understood, because it was an instinct he had himself when he was injured worse than usual. But he wasn't going to let her indulge in it. Not this time.

"And I want to keep an eye on you," he retorted. "So I'm not giving you a choice."

"Bully," she sulked, giving in.

"Yup," he agreed unrepentantly. The fact that she'd conceded with so little fight, just confirmed that he was making the right choice. If she had been feeling anywhere near normal, she wouldn't have thought twice about simply jumping from the moving vehicle, rather than be taken somewhere she didn't want to be. "I'll make you soup," he offered as an olive branch.

"Okay," she said weakly.

"And I think I might have a box of Jell-o in the back of the pantry," he added. It was what his mother had always made for him, when he was sick as a kid, and although it wasn't something he indulged in often, it was his version of comfort food.

"No, no Jell-o," Parker said quickly, shaking her head from side to side on the headrest.

"You don't like Jell-o?" he asked surprised, after all he didn't think Parker had ever met a dessert she didn't like.

" _No. Jell-o_ ," she repeated firmly. "Pudding?" she asked hopefully.

Eliot chuckled fondly, "Sure Parker, I'll get you pudding."

And once he'd gotten her home, she seemed perfectly content, if not exactly happy, considering how sick she was, to stay there. Which was how he had found himself playing nursemaid to a thief with the flu.

Eliot was lost in thought and the rhythm of the bread he was kneading while the chicken stock was simmering, so he wasn't completely aware of how much time had passed before he caught Parker shuffling in his direction out of the corner of his eye.

"What are you doing up?"

"I'm done," she said, extending a single piece of heavy stock paper that she'd ripped out of the sketch book.

Wiping the flour off his hands, Eliot took the offered paper, more than a little curious about what Parker would come up with, left to her own devices. His eyes widened when he saw what she had done. Using the watercolor pencils, she had recreated the view from the Grand Canyon at sunrise from their last job, exactly as he remembered it.

"You did this from memory?" he asked, impressed. Eliot knew that he excelled at more than his fair share of things in this world, but art was _not_ one of them. His job necessitated knowing about art of all kinds, but his own artistic abilities were relegated to somewhere around stick figures.

"Yeah," she shrugged negligently, not at all understanding why he was so impressed by that.

"This is amazing, Parker," he told her sincerely.

"You can have it if you want. I mean I painted it for you, anyways," she explained simply, between her sniffles. "After the sun was up, you said that you wished you'd thought to take a picture. So I guess this is the next best thing."

Eliot couldn't help but find the gesture touching. After all, Parker probably found the security system at the Louvre to be a far more interesting subject to paint, but she'd thought about what _he_ might like, instead. "I'm gonna frame this and hang it up."

She just shrugged again, looking vaguely disinterested, wordlessly telling him to do whatever he wanted with it.

"But until then…" on a whim, he turned around to snag the magnet that usually kept his shopping list attached to the side of his fridge, and used it to stick Parker's work to the front of the wide expanse of stainless steel.

Parker's jaw dropped when she realized what he'd just done. "It's good enough to go on the _fridge_?" she asked softly.

Eliot looked at her askance. "I just said I was gonna hang it on the wall," he reminded her. "Of course it's good enough to go on the fridge."

"I've never done anything that went on the fridge before," she said with wide eyes.

He didn't understand. "Parker, what-"

"The fridge was for the real kids," she explained innocently, before he could even finish his question. "Not the fosters."

Eliot wondered if he would ever stop feeling like he'd been sucker punched, when Parker dropped hints of her upbringing on him like that. He struggled to find the appropriate words to respond, and came up empty. But he felt like he'd been let off the hook when when she smiled brightly for the first time since she'd gotten sick, and then shuffled back to the couch.

He watched her settle back onto the couch, and couldn't even find it in himself to be annoyed when he took a look at the mess on the coffee table; not even when he realized that she'd used her drinking glass for her dirty paint water. Instead, he glanced back at the painting on the fridge that had made her so happy, took a moment to adjust it so that it hung straight, and made a mental note to buy more magnets as he returned to the loaf of bread he was making.

* * *

A/N and there we have it! Another chapter in the books... I just wanted to thank everyone again who has taken the time to comment in the past, I cherish each and every one of them and they really mean the world to be and inspire me to keep going... especially when writing for a fandom that isn't as active as others... so thank you again :D and if you liked this chapter I'd be delighted to know what you thought!

Until next time at the same bat time on the same bat channel!


	6. Is A Dangerous Parker

A/N Alright here we go the second half of the chapter... As always my everlasting thanks to Alexandra926 for keeping me comprehensible :D

Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

Eliot slapped his hand over the strings of his guitar to stop the reverberation when Parker audibly sighed for the fourth time in the last twenty minutes.

"What is wrong with you, Parker?" he growled, annoyed, twisting around on the couch so that he could see where she was perched on the windowsill. The ledge was far too narrow for any normal human to be comfortable sitting on it, but that hadn't stopped her from camping out on it for most of the afternoon.

"I'm tired of the rain," she said, her forehead resting against the windowpane where she was watching the nor'easter that had been pounding the city for the past four days. Since Parker's warehouse was in one of the lower lying areas of the city, she'd chosen to weather the storm - which the news, in its typical overly dramatic fashion, had been calling 'the storm of the century' - at Eliot's.

"I thought you _liked_ a good storm," he countered, turning his attention back to the instrument in his lap, picking out random chords more than playing an actual song.

"Yeah, when I can be outside in it," she sulked, with yet another heavy sigh.

Eliot rolled his eyes. He hardly thought he was being unreasonable by telling her that the rooftop was not where she should be during hurricane-force winds.

"Last thing I need is you getting sick again," he reminded her instead. "Do you want a repeat of last month? Because I sure as hell don't."

Parker ignored that pointed statement and just sighed again, sliding from the ledge and skulking over to the couch where Eliot was sitting. "I'm _so_ bored!" she exclaimed, before flopping backwards over the back of the couch, so that she was now looking up at him, her head hanging off the edge of the seat.

For once, Eliot could relate. They'd been stuck inside for days now and even _he_ was starting to get a little stir crazy. It didn't help that the power had been offline since that morning, leaving them with even fewer options to keep themselves occupied than usual. Parker had done some sketching earlier, when there was still enough ambient light to draw by, but she'd tired of that eventually. Even her box of favorite practice locks had only kept her attention for so long.

"We should go steal something. Right now," she proposed, letting her hands dangle above her head so her fingers brushed the floor.

Eliot looked down at her like she was insane. "I'm not going to go pull a heist with you in the middle of a freakin' monsoon."

"What, you afraid you're gonna melt if you get wet? You're not made of brown sugar, Sparky," she retorted. "Besides, think about it, we could steal anything in the city right now." She grinned, her mind already spinning at the possibilities. "With the power out all over the city, alarm systems are going to be down or running on backup generators, which are super easy to bypass. All nonessential work has been shut down for the next couple days, so that would minimize the chance of running into human guards. And with the flooding and downed power lines all over the city, emergency services are going to be so backed up, there's no way police response times would be anywhere near effective."

It was a testament to just how bored he was that what Parker was saying actually sounded logical and he found himself considering it. "No," he shook his head, coming to his senses. "You're right. It would be easy. _Too_ easy. Where's the fun in that?"

Parker's bottom lip pushed out in a pout. "It would still be a _little_ fun."

"Nah," he reached over and poked her side, making her squirm a little. "Besides darlin', I thought we don't do that anymore."

Parker responded with a huge put-upon sigh, which told him exactly what she thought about about _that_.

"Why don't you find something to read, instead," he recommended, trying to divert her attention, gesturing to the bookshelves that lined the back wall with his head.

"It's getting too dark in here," she replied, shooting down his suggestion.

"That's what the lantern is for," he pointed out, referring to the battery-powered camping light sitting on the coffee table. He'd pulled it out of the closet earlier when the power had gone out, just in case NSTAR didn't get the electricity up and running again before nightfall. Which was looking more and more likely by the minute.

"You know I can't sit still and read," she scoffed.

"Yeah," he asked curiously, "why is that?"

He'd never bothered to ask before, just chalking it up as another one of Parker's many quirks. But he had noticed that whenever she picked up a book, she always read it while wandering aimlessly around the condo. He would watch her sometimes as she ambled in and out of rooms, around tables, between chairs, using her superior situational awareness and peripheral vision to avoid bumping into anything while she flipped through the pages.

"If my hands aren't busy, then my feet need to be," she explained simply.

Eliot turned that over in his head for a moment. He supposed that did make a certain amount of sense. In Parker logic, at least. For a split second, he considered suggesting that she take up knitting to keep her hands busy, but then he realized that Parker with knitting needles was a terrifying proposition indeed and dismissed the idea.

As evening fell and the sun went down, the dim stormy haze that they'd spent most of the day in, quickly became legitimate darkness. Parker, who was occupying herself by picking loose threads from the hole in the knee of the jeans Eliot was wearing, sighed again before flipping backward off the couch, landing nimbly on her feet.

Eliot didn't bother asking where she was going when she left the room, and only glanced up when she came back with what he recognized as the box of beeswax candles she'd forced him to buy at the farmers market a few months back. He only had to arch one questioning brow before she was answering his unasked question.

"I like fire better," she explained, with that disquieting grin of hers.

"Of course you do," was all Eliot said, bemused, as he watched her sit down on the the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table, carefully arranging and lighting the candles until they covered the surface, bathing the circle they sat in, in a soft flickering glow.

He watched her for a moment as she occupied herself with the candles, letting her fingertips dance through the flames.

His first instinct was to scold her for literally playing with fire, sure that she was going to burn herself. But he decided to trust that just like when she figuratively did the same, that she knew her own limits. She would never chance doing actual damage to her fingers; her hands were too important to her. Leaving her to it, Eliot let the random notes he'd been playing begin to segue into the opening chords of Johnny Cash's arrangement of _Hurt_ , and he began to sing softly.

Halfway through the song, Eliot looked up and was taken aback to find that at some point, Parker had stopped what she was doing and had turned her full attention towards him. In a moment, all the air rushed out of his chest and he had to remind himself how to breathe. He had to play the interlude through twice before he had collected himself enough to continue on to the second verse. It wasn't finding himself the sole subject of Parker's sharp focus that had thrown him so thoroughly. It was the fact that lit by the dozen or so candles between them, she looked… ethereal.

He'd never considered himself to be overly poetic, but it was the only word that seemed to fit. Illuminated by the soft flickering glow, her pale skin and blonde hair seemed to positively glow from the inside out.

Watching her watching him, with that soft and gentle smile she so rarely wore; it was too much somehow, and he had to look away as he continued the mournful song.

Eliot had always been aware that Parker was an attractive woman. He'd known that since that first job back in Chicago; he had eyes, after all. And back when this was all supposed to be a walk-away, he might have actually considered doing something about it, if he hadn't so quickly shoved her into a neat little box labeled crazy. Over time, the label on that box had changed, first to crew, then to friend, and now she was simply _Parker_. But all of that added up to the same total sum: off limits, not to be thought of that way. He didn't know why he was suddenly forgetting this very important fact.

But when he glanced up again he was once again struck by the fact that his Parker was a beauty.

No, not _his_...

Parker. Just Parker.

It was the storms fault, he decided. He'd just been stuck inside too long was all. As the last notes faded away, Eliot cleared his throat roughly and pushed those thoughts right out of his head.

"Did you want to play for awhile?" he offered.

"No, I like listening to you sing," she shook her head with a soft smile, content where she was. "You don't do it very often."

He inhaled sharply and covered it with the first thought that popped into his head, "Uh, do you have any requests?"

Parker's eyes darted around the room while she considered his question, until her gaze landed on the storm-battered window and inspiration struck. "Play November Rain."

Eliot swallowed hard. That wasn't really the vibe-changing song that he was looking for. "That's like a nine minute song, Parker," he said instead.

"Yeah, and? Do you have somewhere to be?" she asked, looking at him oddly, as she pointed out the foolishness of his objection.

"Just pick something shorter," he said gruffly.

Parker continued to search the room for new inspiration until her attention settled on the candles in front of her. "Play... Light My Fire," she requested instead.

Eliot swallowed hard. She was killing him, and she had no idea. That song was even worse, but he couldn't think of a good reason to shoot down the suggestion.

"You know it, right?" she asked when he didn't start playing.

"Yeah, I guess," he agreed, not able to tell her why he didn't want to sing it.

"Cool. But hold on a sec. I wanna get something first," she said before she popped to her feet, already into the kitchen before he could blink. He shook his head to himself, and gratefully took a moment to regroup as he listened to her rummaging around in a cupboard in the dark. In her excitement at the prospect of whatever it was that she was looking for, she hadn't thought to bring a light with her.

While he waited for her, he strummed the guitar idly, thinking about his offer. He really would have let her have a turn on the guitar, had she wanted one. Of course, that hadn't always been the case. The first time she'd stolen the instrument from its case, which he kept hidden away in the back of his closet, his head had nearly exploded. But that was before he knew she could actually play. When pressed, she'd shrugged and explained that a former foster brother had taught her when she was a kid. When he'd asked her why she hadn't ever mentioned it, she'd given him that look that always made him feel like an idiot and informed him simply that he'd never asked.

She wasn't half bad, either. Her nimble fingers made easy work of even the most difficult chords. She couldn't read music, and the one time he'd attempted to teach her how, had ended disastrously with a mutual agreement to never speak of it again. But she had a good ear, that when combined with her near-perfect recall meant that she only had to be shown a song once, and run through it on her own a few times before she'd have it memorized.

Eliot chuckled fondly when Parker reappeared and he saw what her prize was. "Where did you even get those?" he asked, when he realized she had a bag of marshmallows in one hand and a fork in the other.

"The kitchen," she replied lightly, ripping open the bag and popping two at once into her mouth.

"I figured that much," he rolled his eyes. "How did they get there?" he asked instead, knowing for a fact that he hadn't bought them.

"Ipumfumfer."

"Chew, swallow, then speak."

It was Parker's turn to roll her eyes, but she did as she was told. "I put them there," she repeated unrepentantly. "You have _your_ emergency supplies and I have mine. And if you ask me really nicely, I'll share."

"Who says I even want any?" he challenged, leaning over the guitar in his lap with a grin.

" _Everyone_ likes a toasted marshmallow," she challenged right back. "And if you don't, then _there's something wrong with you_."

Eliot smirked at hearing his own words thrown back at him in a growled tone that could only be her attempt at an imitation of his voice. Instead, she sounded like she was getting getting over laryngitis. But he had to give her points for the attempt.

Parker was preoccupied with her project as he started playing, and he watched her spear a marshmallow on a fork and hold it over the candle's flame.

" _You know that it would be untrue  
_ _You know that I would be a liar  
_ _If I was to say to you  
_ _Girl, we couldn't get much higher_ "

He watched the smile on her face grow into something a little scary, as the marshmallow caught fire and started to burn, the outside quickly charring black. She brought the flaming treat to her lips and with one swift breath, blew out the flame, barely letting it cool before pulling it off the fork with her fingers and popping the whole gooey mess into her mouth.

" _Come on baby, light my fire  
_ _Come on baby, light my fire  
_ _Try to set the night on fire"_

He watched her repeat the same process twice more, before she took another marshmallow out of the bag and this time took her time roasting it over the small flame. She held it just close enough for it to toast, but not for it to catch flame. There was a look of fierce concentration on her face as she slowly turned the fork, making sure each side browned evenly.

As he played the last chords of the song, she reached over the coffee table and fed him the now perfectly toasted marshmallow off of her fork. It wasn't anything he hadn't done for _her_ a thousand times as she sat and watched him cook dinner, giving her tastes of whatever he was making. But he couldn't help but swallow hard as he pulled the perfectly golden confection off the fork with his teeth. The warm sugar melted on his tongue while he watched Parker innocently suck melted marshmallow from her fingertips, having no idea the picture she made.

Of their own volition, his hands went back to strumming the guitar and he started playing another song. Even as he started to sing Tupelo Honey, he questioned what he was doing. He let his eyes fall shut as he leisurely played his way through the first few verses, but when he glanced up midway through the song, and saw he had once again captured her full attention, that soft smile playing across her lips. Something warm and viscous, just like the honey he was singing about, spread from his chest all the way out to his limbs, and he couldn't help but catch her eye and sing directly to her.

" _She's as sweet as tupelo honey  
_ _Just like honey from the bee  
_

 _You know she's alright  
_ _You know she's alright with me."_

Once he got through the rest of the song, Eliot sighed and set the guitar to the side. He needed to stop while he was ahead.

"Are you bored, too?" Parker asked curiously.

If only it was that simple.

"Yeah, Parker," he agreed anyway, with another sigh. It was half of the truth. "I'm bored."

Suddenly faced with someone else's boredom for once instead of just her own, Parker twisted up her mouth as she tried to come up with a solution. "Do you want to learn how to get yourself out of handcuffs?" she offered.

He almost said no. After all, his own tried-and-true method was to simply kick the ass of whoever had the keys, and that had always worked out for him in the past. But he knew that there had been times when being able to get himself free without drawing attention to himself would have come in handy. However there was a practical problem with her idea. "I don't have any cuffs to practice with," he pointed out.

"I do!" she chirped, as she popped to her feet and disappeared down the hall.

"Of course she does," Eliot said to the empty room.

He felt like he should have been more surprised than he was when she came back and set a good sized box down between them on the couch. Peering into the box, he saw that it was indeed filled with handcuffs of all different makes and models, including a few pair that could really only be called shackles. If any other woman had revealed that they possessed a box full of assorted handcuffs, he would have thought she was either incredibly kinky, or a serial killer. But this was Parker, so he just shook his head and chuckled.

"What the hell Parker? Where did you even get all of these?" he asked, pulling out a pair of Hiatt speedcuffs, that he knew were the handcuff of choice for the police force in the United Kingdom.

While they had both spent more time than they would have liked in handcuffs, for a whole variety of reasons, he knew there was no way that she'd actually been caught and cuffed as many times as there were restraints in the box. She was too good at her job for that.

"Those, I got in London." She pulled another set from the box, "And these, I got in Shanghai, and these-"

Eliot cut her off. "Forget I asked."

Parker grinned and answered the question that Eliot was really asking. "Whenever I see a pair of handcuffs I don't have, I lift them," she explained. "While I've never found a set that could actually hold me, it's always best to have an advantage, just in case."

Eliot had no problems picturing Parker wandering the world, stealing cuffs off of cops so she could practice. "Do you lift the keys too?"

"Why would I do that?" she asked, genuinely.

"Nevermind," he said with a smirk. "How do I start?"

"You know the basics of how to pick a lock, right?" she asked. After all, they hadn't become the best in their fields by not knowing at least the basics of everyone else's as well. When Eliot nodded, she continued. "Handcuffs are actually some of the easiest locks to pick since they're only ever meant to be a temporary restraint to begin with. Mostly they're counting on you not being able to get to either a pick or the lock. Personally, I always have at least three items I can use as a lock pick on my person at all times," she informed him, in what he considered to be her 'professional thief' voice.

"At _all_ times?" he asked, giving her current outfit a speculative once over. She was wearing what she typically wore around the house, which was to say that she wasn't wearing much.

"At all times," she confirmed, with a smirk. She extended a leg which had been curled underneath her and propped her foot up on his knee, before pulling a slender pick from between the threads of her knee high rainbow toe socks. "I always keep them different places, in case I get searched by someone who knows what they're doing, or so that at least one of them will be in reach depending on how I'm restrained," she explained, handing him the tool, before pulling another from her hair to use for demonstration.

Eliot found himself surprised at what a thorough and patient teacher Parker was. He hadn't been sure what to expect from someone who never seemed to realize that any of her more extraordinary skills weren't inherent to everyone. She always seemed so genuinely surprised that not everyone could draw nearly photo-realistic portraits from memory, or do complex calculations in their heads. Eliot had been curious to see whether Parker would get frustrated if he didn't pick it up as quickly as he imagined she originally had.

But instead, she slowly and carefully walked him through each step. All the while, explaining the best places to secret away extra picks, different items she'd fashioned improvised picks and shims from, and the best way to position your hands while getting cuffed to make getting out of them easier. She'd started him off with the easiest set first and had him pick the lock with his hands still unrestrained. When Eliot had demonstrated that he could do that with relative ease, Parker had reached out to take the cuffs so she could fasten them over his wrists.

"Now, this actually makes a bigger difference for you than it does for me because you're so muscular, but you always want to flex your wrists as much as possible, making them as big as you can while you're getting cuffed. Especially if they know what they're doing," she explained as she fastened the stainless steel over Eliot's wrists. "That'll give you that extra wiggle room to get your hands in the positions they need to be in to get to the lock."

Eliot actually already knew that, but he didn't tell her. Just as he hadn't told her when she was repeating any other information he was already aware of. He was enjoying listening to her speak about something she was so passionate about. Parker walked through life so ambivalent about pretty much everything; her own particular niche of criminal knowledge was one of the few things in life that she got truly enthusiastic about.

"If anyone ever actually cuffs you with your arms in front _and_ the locks facing your hands," Parker laughed as though she'd just told the funniest joke she'd ever heard. "Well, they might as well have just handed you the key, too, because why even bother? But it's good to start learning with," she added, handing him the pick.

While he worked, she coached him along, while she explained what kind of cuffs he would most likely come across in their travels. It wasn't long before he knew how to tell a single from a double lock, and the differences between a lever lock, a push-pin lock and a slot lock.

When Parker was satisfied with his progress, she asked him if he was ready to try to it with his hands behind his back. She slid behind him to clasp the cold steel around his wrists and when she moved back into his line of sight she was grinning.

"What, you like seeking me cuffed?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

She shook her head, the smile only growing. "I like seeing you get out of them," she told him. "You teach me _your_ stuff all the time, this is the first time I've taught you _my_ stuff. I like it," she said with delicate little shrug. "So thanks."

"For what, darlin'?" he asked, fiddling with the pick, trying to position it correctly in the lock without being able to see what he was doing.

"For trusting me," she said simply.

He wasn't sure if she mean trusting her enough to teach him a new skill properly, or trusting her enough to let her restrain him with handcuffs, especially considering that they'd already established that she didn't even possess the keys for them. Either way, it didn't matter. Because he realized that he _did_ trust her. In fact, it never even crossed his mind that Parker wouldn't remove them for him, if he needed the help, which in of itself was revelationary.

It was funny, he may not have trusted her not to accidentally set his kitchen on fire, or for her to be able to resist a locked door. And he certainly didn't trust her to feed herself a balanced diet. But he trusted _her_. When it came down to it, he trusted her with his life. And that was something rare and priceless.

"Of course I do, sweetheart," he told her sincerely, a grin of his own spreading across his face when he felt the click, and the cuffs fell open.

"Good job, Sparky," Parker praised. "Now, see if you can do it faster."

As he held his hands out so that Parker could fasten the cuffs over them again, he couldn't help but chuckle lowly.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"Sometimes it just strikes me how not normal our lives are," he admitted. Of the some five million-odd people living in the Boston area, all shut in by the storm that night, he felt fairly confident in thinking that they were probably the only ones passing the time in quite this way.

Her head tilted to one side in genuine curiosity. "Why would we want to be normal, when we could be _us_?"

A slow grin spread over his face; the real one that made his eyes crinkle. "You make an excellent point, darlin'," he conceded. "You make an excellent point.

* * *

A/N And there we have it! I hope you liked it :D Just letting you all know now, we're gonna switch gears a little starting next chapter as we head into the next phase of the plot ;) but until next time, if you enjoyed this chapter, let me know what you thought!


	7. Helpless

A/N MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! Here's your gift from me to you! Well, if you celebrate, if not happy December 25th! I'm gonna apologize ahead of time for the fact that this chapter isn't very Christmas-y but this just happened to the chapter that fell here on the posting schedule, but I hope you all enjoy it anyways :D

* * *

Spring turned into summer, which moved on to fall, and Eliot and Parker had long since settled into the new status quo of their now semi-shared homelife. At work, however, things remained business as usual. Other than their one major falling out, and a few minor incidents of small arguments at home that might have spilled over into being irritated with each other during work hours, there was nothing to indicate to the other members of their crew that anything had changed in how the pair had taken to spending their time off in the last six months.

Well, no _significant_ indications.

That is, unless any of them had noticed that if he didn't sit on the couch, Parker had taken to sitting on the arm of Eliot's chair almost exclusively during team briefings, and he never once complained beyond a token eye roll. Or that she now automatically helped Eliot clean up after team dinners without him prodding for a volunteer; the two of them having a comfortable, practiced rhythm moving around each other in a kitchen. And, of course, there was the fact that whenever the duo were paired together on cons, it seemed as though they no longer had to speak to communicate. They had become so efficient at reading one another that they each knew what the other was thinking with a simple look.

But, if anyone noticed any of those things... well, no one mentioned it.

It could have continued on this way indefinitely, if it hadn't been for one day in early autumn, when what _should_ have been an easy job went south.

It was supposed to have been a basic snatch-and-grab. In, out, and on their way. The job was one that they should have been able to do in their sleep. In fact, they had already run several substantially more difficult variations of the same job quite successfully.

Their client had had their life's work, in the form of a prototype virtual assistant, stolen by their corrupt employer before being blackmailed against speaking out. The Leverage team was tasked in getting it back for them, before taking down the CEO for good measure.

It was an all too familiar story.

The only unique aspect to this job was the corporation's security system, which tagged each item in the inventory, keeping track of said item's position inside the building. It was a completely new, proprietary system, and Hardison didn't know how to hack or disable it without spending more time than they could afford. Getting _to_ the prototype wasn't the problem. A stolen key card and some spoofed camera feeds and they were golden. The problem was that they weren't able to get the prototype out of the lab without setting off alarms, let alone walk the item out the front door undetected. There was an easy fix, however; they just wouldn't use doors.

The plan was simple. Nate and Sophie who were working the CEO angle, would run distraction under the the guise of potential foreign investors, in an after-hours meeting. Eliot would accompany them as their personal assistant and then sneak away to retrieve the item. Parker, waiting on the roof, would then rappel down the building, take the handoff from Eliot through the window and deliver it to Lucille, where Hardison would be waiting. Then, Eliot would reconvene with Nate and Sophie and they would all be on their way, with no one the wiser.

They were more than halfway through the con, and everything was going exactly according to plan.

"Alright, I'm in," Eliot said softly, using the key card Sophie had lifted for him, to gain entrance to the development lab.

"You lookin' good from my end," Hardison said from the van, keeping an eye on the non-spoofed version of the security feed. "Remember, you're looking for-"

"I know what I'm looking for!" Eliot growled into the comms. "I saw the same pictures you did, Hardison!"

"Well then get to finding, Eliot!" Hardison retorted.

" _Boys_ ," Sophie murmured warningly, unable to say more while she and Nate were busy distracting the mark.

"I got it," Eliot announced after just a few moments, pulling the prototype, no larger than a deck of cards, from a shelf. "It was just sitting out in the open. Not locked up or hidden at all."

"It doesn't have to be," Parker said, from her position on the roof where she was double-checking her rig. "This whole building is a safe. They just didn't account for us."

"Nobody ever does, Mama," Hardison said smugly.

Eliot pulled a glass cutter out from the inner pocket of his jacket. "Ninety seconds Parker, til the hand-off."

"Copy that," she confirmed, standing at the edge of the roof, ready to rappel down the seven floors from the roof to meet Eliot at the third floor for the exchange.

"Whoa whoa whoa, where did you come from?" Hardison asked, sitting up straight in alarm when a guard came into view on his screens. "Hold up Parker, don't move yet. Eliot, you're about to have company. Security is coming in."

"Dammit Hardison!" Eliot exclaimed, shoving the prototype into his pocket. "You were supposed to keep them off this floor!"

Whatever the hacker's response, it was lost on Eliot, who was moving to block the hole he'd already cut in the floor to ceiling window, as the lab door swung open.

"Who are you, and what are you doing in here!" the guard shouted, pulling his sidearm, and pointing it in Eliot's direction.

It took the hitter only seconds to size up the guard. Young. Barely more than a kid. Obviously no formal training. But if Eliot had to take a guess, by the eagerness of his stance and the glint in his eye, he would say that the kid had most likely wanted to join the military or law enforcement and had been turned away, ending up in private security instead. He was barely more than a mini mall rent-a-cop with delusions of grandeur. He knew the type, and it made the gun in this kid's hand far more dangerous than if he was merely facing off against ex-CIA or an ex-Ranger.

"Hey now, bubba," Eliot said, letting his accent thicken, as he raised his hands in front of him disarmingly. "I was lookin' for the bathroom and wouldn't you know it, I got myself all turned around. Do you think you could point me in the right direction-"

He took a slow half-step forward, knowing that he had to get in close in order to disarm the guard, before he spooked and got trigger-happy.

Up on the roof, Parker heard the sound of gunshots and the shattering of glass in real time, a split second before she heard the same sounds echoing through her earbud. With wide eyes, and all the air gone from her chest, there was nothing Parker could do but watch as Eliot crashed through the third-story window and tumbled through the branches of a large oak tree, until he hit the ground with a sickening thud that she would never be able to unhear.

She was vaguely aware of Hardison shouting, and Nate and Sophie extracting themselves from the mark over the comms, but she ignored it all as she leapt off the roof. She hit the ground hard, having barely touched her handbrake on descent in her rush to get to Eliot.

"Don't be dead, don't be dead, don't be dead," she chanted, as she ran to his side and fell to her knees, looking for signs of life.

A gash over his left eye was badly bleeding, but she took that as a good sign. After all, if he was actively bleeding, his heart was still actively pumping. But despite how obviously bad that looked, it wasn't her main concern. She knew that even superficial head wounds were prone to heavy bleeding. The five gunshots she'd heard while she was on the roof were far more worrisome.

Working quickly, she ripped open the jacket Eliot was wearing, her eyes and hands moving over his body inspecting the damage. She quickly determined that he'd been hit twice, once in the shoulder, which she knew was not likely to be life threatening, and once in the stomach, which could be. Parker whipped the sweater she was wearing up and over her head, balling it up and pressing it hard against the wound. Eliot's eyes fluttered and he groaned painfully as she applied pressure.

"Hey Eliot," she said with no small amount of relief, as he regained consciousness. "Flying through windows is my job, so why don't you leave it to me next time, huh?" she joked weakly, as if being able to make light of the situation would mean it wasn't as serious as it obviously was.

"Pa… Park…" he struggled to say her name before coughing wetly, bringing bright red blood to his lips.

"I'm right here, Sparky," she assured him, pressing harder against his stomach, wincing when he groaned again. "I'm sorry. I have to," she apologized, having no desire to add to his pain. This was not the same as when she poked at his bruises to gauge his reactions so that she could determine for herself how badly he was actually hurt, since he always tried to hide it. "Just hold on, okay? Just hold on."

With what clearly took a great effort, Eliot managed to lift his arm just enough to reach out and push a lock of hair that had escaped her braid from her face, his fingertips lingering against her cheek, before his eyes rolled back and he once again lost consciousness.

"Eliot! No, stay with me! _Eliot_!" she called, panic creeping into her tone. Suddenly she was aware of the fact that her teammates had been yelling in her ear all this time. "Where the hell are you guys?!" she yelled back. "Eliot needs a hospital ten minutes ago!"

"We're almost there," Nate assured her, sounding strained.

Sure enough, just as he said that, Lucille came careening around the corner, tires screeching. From there, it was all a blur as they worked to get Eliot to the hospital as quickly as possible without aggravating his injuries. Nate was kneeling with Parker in the back of the van, trying to stop the bleeding from Eliot's other wounds, while she kept pressure on his stomach. Hardison was making sure they had the proper aliases at the ready, and Sophie was driving like a woman possessed. After what felt like hours, but was really only minutes, they pulled up to the emergency room doors. Their shouts for help brought the triage staff running, and before Parker could even process what was happening, Eliot was loaded onto a gurney and immediately wheeled off to surgery.

Parker didn't know what kind of story Nate and Sophie possibly could have spun that would account for both the gunshot wounds and the fall injuries, to both the doctors and the police who'd shown up to take a statement. And quite frankly, she didn't care.

All she knew, was that she _needed_ Eliot to be okay.

Time seemed to lose all meaning underneath the clinical fluorescent lights as she sat motionless for hours in the uncomfortable waiting room chair, waiting late into the night for any kind of news.

Nate and Sophie were sitting across from her, speaking in low voices while drinking crappy hospital coffee. Hardison sat next to her, tapping away on his laptop, doing whatever it was that he did when he cleaned up their electronic trail in these kinds of situations. But all Parker could do was stare at her hands, the memory of Eliot's warm blood seeping through her fingers all too fresh in her mind.

"Are you alright, Parker?" Sophie asked, when she glanced up and saw the look on the thief's face.

"Eliot's blood is on my hands," she said flatly, still staring at where they sat in her lap.

"Oh sweetie, what happened to Eliot, it's not your fault," Sophie quickly assured her. "There's nothing you could have done. Nothing any of us could have done. In fact, you getting to him so quickly probably saved his life."

"What?" Parker asked looking up, confusion shining in her eyes.

"She meant it literally, Soph," Nate muttered, nodding towards the rusty red streaks going up Parker's forearms. "Not metaphorically."

"Oh, of course. Come dear, let's get you cleaned up," Sophie said, rising to her feet and motioning for Parker to do the same.

Pliantly, Parker allowed herself to be led to the restroom, and with a little gentle prodding from Sophie, she began to scrub the blood that she hadn't been able to rub off on her jeans, off her hands and arms. She stared into the sink, mesmerized as the dark red blood turned such a pale pink as it mixed with the soap and water before swirling down the drain. When the water ran clear, Sophie leaned over and shut off the faucet.

When Sophie handed her a wad of paper towels to dry her hands, Parker looked up at herself in the mirror for the first time. Even though she didn't really care, she could see that she looked like shit. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her skin was more pale than usual. Even her hair seemed to hang limply around her face. Leaning in closer to the mirror, she noticed three small flecks of dried blood high on her cheek, the contrast high against her ashen complexion.

They were right where Eliot had touched her face before he'd passed out.

A small voice inside her head wondered if that would prove to be the last thing he'd ever do.

"Eliot's going to be okay, isn't he Sophie?" Parker asked, still staring at the stains on her cheek.

Reassuring, but empty, platitudes rose to the grifter's lips, but she swallowed them down in favor of the truth. "I don't know, sweetie," she said honestly. "But the doctors are doing everything they can, and our Eliot is a fighter. If anyone can come back from this, he can."

Parker didn't respond verbally, but she did use the paper towels still in her hand to scrub her face clean.

They were walking back out to the waiting room to rejoin the others, when the double doors that led deeper inside the hospital swung open, admitting a doctor in surgical scrubs.

"Family of William Pratt?"

"That's you, _Elizabeth_ ," Sophie whispered, giving Parker an inconspicuous nudge forward.

"Yes, that's me," Parker said, stepping towards the doctor, the others coming to stand at her sides. "Will is my-" She hesitated for a split second. She remembered Hardison giving them their aliases in the van, but she couldn't remember their relationships. They had the same last name, right? So that had to mean that they were supposed to be either married or siblings. She just couldn't remember which one. She took a guess. "Will is my husband."

She took the fact that Hardison inhaled sharply on her right, and that Sophie was subtly slipping a ring onto her left hand, to mean that she'd guessed wrong.

"Is Will going to be alright?" Nate asked.

"Well, the good news is that he's made it through surgery, and has been moved to the ICU for recovery," the doctor told them. "He's currently stable, but it was touch and go there for awhile. His heart stopped momentarily, but we got it restarted before there should have been any lasting damage."

Parker felt like her own heart stopped at the news, but the doctor wasn't finished yet.

"The fall ruptured his spleen, which we had to remove," he continued to explain. "The gunshot wound to his abdomen perforated the small intestine, so we will have to watch carefully for signs of infection going forward. The other gunshot wound to his shoulder broke his left clavicle, which we repaired with a plate and two screws. He also sustained hairline fractures to six different ribs and comminuted fractures to both the radius and ulna of his right arm. We also repaired a torn meniscus in his left knee and sutured various lacerations including the one to his head. While the next twenty-four hours are critical, he is currently stable and I believe that given time, and physical therapy, all of _these_ injuries should heal."

"I hear a _but_ coming," Sophie said, reaching out to take Nate's hand.

" _But_ , his head injuries are concerning," the doctor admitted. "There is significant swelling, leading to increased intracranial pressure."

"What does that mean for Will?" Nate asked.

"It means he's yet to regain consciousness," the doctor told them.

"Are you saying he's in a coma?" Hardison asked tightly, reading between the lines.

Sophie gasped and slapped her free hand over her mouth.

"It's too early yet to define it as such. However, the longer he remains unconscious, the greater the risk of…."

The doctor kept talking, but Parker had heard enough. She didn't have time for this. She needed to see Eliot, and she needed to see him now. Slipping away from the group unnoticed, as only she could, she took matters into her hands and went looking for him.

The sun was starting to rise by the time she found his room. And despite her eagerness to see him, she hesitated in the doorway.

He looked… small.

Intellectually, Parker knew that Eliot wasn't the largest guy, but his presence more than made up for it. But now, laying in that bed, covered in tubes and wires, she couldn't quite make herself believe that it was really him. She crossed over to his side with the same care as she would had the room been filled with laser wires and pressure plates. In the dim morning light, Eliot's normally swarthy complexion looked sallow and grey. Except for the entire left side of his face, which was a mottled mess of swelling and bruises. Cautiously, she reached out and touched her fingertips to his, careful not to disturb the IV line in the back of his hand. His skin felt cool to the touch, at odds with the way the hitter usually radiated heat.

The rhythmic beat of the heart monitor was loud in the otherwise silent room, and she could feel it echoing in her own chest. It was at once both a reminder that at one point his heart had stopped, and an audible reassurance that it was still beating.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been standing there, just listening to the heart monitor beep, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest with every breath, before the rest of the team came walking through the door.

"There you are, Lizzie," Sophie announced their arrival. "I figured we'd find you here."

"I couldn't wait anymore. I wanted to see him," Parker said softly. "I _needed_ to see him."

"Of course you'd want to see your husband," Sophie said for benefit of the nurse who'd shown them in. She turned and whacked Nate on the shoulder with her clutch, "See, I told you she wouldn't have left."

Nate just shrugged. They all knew that Parker's reactions in time of emotional stress could be unpredictable. He didn't think it was out of the realm of possibility to think she might have taken off, wanting to be alone for awhile.

The nurse made some comments about visiting hours, and reminded them that they could only stay for a few minutes before they would have to leave. But Sophie worked her magic and soon the nurse was leaving, warning them that she would be back in a bit.

"Parker, you're supposed to be Eliot's _sister,_ not his wife," Hardison complained, once the team was alone.

"I forgot," she shrugged, not taking her eyes off the unconscious hitter, wholly indifferent to the hacker's concerns. "Does it even matter?"

"Does it even matter? _Does it_ _ **even**_ _matter_ she says!" Hardison exclaimed. "Woman, these identities aren't some sloppy cut-and-paste jobs. These are ironclad works of _art_. This means I'm gonna have to change birth certificates, school records, create a wedding license, photos. Does it even matter…" he grumbled.

"Are you saying you can't do it?" Nate asked, knowing which of the hacker's buttons to push.

"Have I _ever_ said I can't do it?" Hardison asked, rounding on the mastermind. "Of course I can do it."

"Then you should get started," Nate said, dryly. "It's for the best, anyways. Spouses always play better in these situations." The change had the added benefit of giving the hacker something to channel his worried energy towards, which he knew was the real issue at play here, not that Parker messed up the aliases.

"Yeah, until someone from intake points out that Will Pratt's wife was his sister on arrival," Hardison muttered, even as he was already on his phone, making the necessary changes.

"Parker can be my sister," Nate decided. "If anyone notices the slip, we can dismiss it as a misunderstanding in the confusion in the ER. And Sophie will be my wife, that way we're in-laws and family as well. "

"What, so everyone gets to be family except for me?" Hardison complained. "I see how it is."

Nate pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly wishing he had a drink. "Hardison, _you_ make the identities," he reminded the younger man. "Make yourself a cousin, marry yourself into the family. Whatever. I don't care."

"This isn't right," Parker said suddenly, bringing the attention back to her.

"What, now you have a problem with the identities too?" Nate asked, sounding tired.

"Huh?" Quite frankly she hadn't been paying any attention to the conversations happening around her.

"What's not right Parker?" Sophie prompted.

"Eliot," she said softly. "He shouldn't be here like this. He always gets back up, that's what he does. This… it's not right."

No one seemed to know what to say, none of them able to disagree. Eventually Nate simply rested a hand on her shoulder in solidarity, while he, Sophie, and Hardison discussed the finer points of the identification changes that would need to be made.

"Someone needs to stay here until he wakes up," Parker announced, once again diverting the conversation. "He won't react well if he wakes up in a hospital alone."

Nate and Sophie exchanged a meaningful look, knowing the thief was right. Of course they didn't have any intention of just abandoning Eliot in the hospital, but Parker made a very valid point. If Eliot woke up disoriented, he could very well hurt himself or someone else trying to escape if one of them wasn't there to explain what had happened.

"I'll take the first shift," Nate said. After all, Eliot was part of _his_ crew, it was his responsibility to look after them. "You guys go home and get some sleep."

"Are you sure?" Sophie asked, concern lacing her words. She knew how he felt about hospitals and wasn't confident that Nate was the best choice. "I don't mind staying."

"I can stay," Hardison offered. "I'm gonna have to stay up and fix these aliases anyways."

"I'm staying," Parker said firmly, her tone leaving no room for argument. "You all go home."

Nate, Sophie and Hardison all spoke at once, trying to make their case on why they should be the one to stay.

"No. _I'm staying_ ," Parker repeated. "I'm supposed to be his wife, right? Isn't that what wives do?" she asked looking at each of her teammates in turn, waiting for one of them to correct her.

But her argument was sound and they all knew it. It was only a matter of time before the nurse came back and tried to kick them all out. As his spouse, Parker had the best claim for disobeying hospital rules.

"Are you sure?" Sophie asked, concerned about Parker's behavior since Eliot got hurt, not confident that leaving her alone was the best idea right now. "I could stay here with you."

"No, I'll be okay," Parker said, pulling up the visitors chair and sitting down, clearly settling in for awhile.

"Alright," Sophie finally conceded. "Can we bring you anything before we leave?"

"No… actually yeah, can you bring me my go-bag I keep stashed in the van?" she requested. "I need to change."

"Of course," Sophie said. Turning to Nate and Hardison, she had a short whispered conversation, sending them down to the van to complete the errand.

Even though her tank and jeans were black and looked fine at a glance, she could feel the dried blood where it had soaked into the fabric, making it stiff and crusty. She'd be dumping this outfit into the first available trash can. Her gaze shifted back to the man in the bed, and she knew Eliot wouldn't approve of her plan.

He'd told her once, while she watched him pretreat his laundry with hydrogen peroxide, that if hadn't learned how to get blood stains out years ago, he wouldn't have any clothes left. She'd asked him why he didn't just throw them out and buy new ones, it wasn't as if he couldn't afford to, she even offered to steal him clothes when she out getting her own. But he'd just given her the _look_ , and gone back to his laundry.

But she didn't care if what she was wearing could be washed out, she never wanted to see these clothes again. In fact she'd burn them in effigy if it meant Eliot would wake up just to give her his annoyed sigh at her wastefulness.

Once the men were gone, Sophie pulled over a second chair and sat down next to the thief, reaching over to take her hand. "Parker, honey, tell me honestly, and remember I'll know if you're not being truthful. Are you alright?"

Parker considered the question a long time before answering. "I don't know," she finally said. "I'm just… I'm… I don't know," she said again, unable to verbalize how she felt. "I don't think I could…" she trailed off again. "Why is this so hard?"

Sophie squeezed her hand. "Because you care about him, Parker. We all do. He's our teammate and our friend. Actually we're more than that now, we're family. It's hard to see someone you care about hurt."

"I saw him fall," Parker confessed softly. "And I froze, I couldn't do anything. He _always_ catches me, but I couldn't catch him. I couldn't even breathe. All I could do was watch."

"Oh, Parker," Sophie said mournfully. She knew that Parker had been on the roof at the time, but she hadn't realized that she'd actually _seen_ Eliot's accident. She'd only heard it over the coms and that was bad enough that she was sure she'd have nightmares for weeks.

"What… what if he doesn't wake up?" she asked, tears welling up in her eyes.

"We can't think like that, sweetie, we have to stay positive," Sophie said surely. "For Eliot as much as ourselves. You put positive thoughts out into the universe and then you'll get them back."

Parker didn't understand what Sophie was saying, but she took the grifter at her word like she always did, trusting her to steer her in the right direction on these matters. If there was any chance of it helping Eliot, she could stay positive.

"He's gonna be mad we brought him here when he wakes up," she mentioned, reaching out to gently poke his elbow, finding that it just wasn't the same when he couldn't glare at her for it. "He hates the hospital."

"We didn't really have much of a choice," Sophie pointed out. "He would have died if we hadn't."

Parker looked over at Sophie with the smallest hint of a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth. "Do you think Eliot's gonna see it that way?"

Sophie chuckled lightly knowing exactly what Parker was talking about. She could already hear their grumpy hitter growling about how all he needed was an ice pack and some aspirin, not a hospital. And despite what she'd just told Parker about thinking positive, she couldn't help but worry that she'd never hear it from the man himself. She didn't have long to dwell on it however, since Nate and Hardison reentered the room with room with an impatient looking nurse.

Nate entered the room first, setting Parker's bag down by her chair. "We'll be back later today, but call me if _anything_ happens before then, alright?" He waited for the thief to nod, before he moved to wait for the others by the door.

Hardison approached Parker next, handing her a laptop. "In case you get bored," he explained. "It's got a bunch of media on there."

Parker took the computer and set it to the side, as Hardison joined Nate in the doorway.

"If you need anything at all, even if it's just to talk, I'm just a phone call away," Sophie reminded the younger woman, as she too stood to leave.

And then Parker found herself alone, sitting vigil over the injured hitter. Waiting, watching and hoping.

* * *

AN And there we have it! I told you guys last chapter that we were gonna be switching gears a little bit going forward and I wasn't lying, lol... I do want to disclaimer that I am not a doctor nor do I have any medical training so if I got anything wrong, blame google...

So leave me a gift and let me know what you thought! Oh and bonus points for anyone who figures out where Hardison got their alias names from ;) And I will see you guys with the next chapter where we will find out Eliot's fate in 2018 :D


	8. Someone To Watch Over Me

AN Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2018 is treating everyone right so far... And as always my eternal gratitude goes to Alexandra926 for being awesome and making this story what it is... I don't really have anything else to say and I left it on a bit of a cliffhanger last time so I'll stop talking and we can get straight to business..

* * *

Eliot regained consciousness slowly.

That was his first clue that something wasn't right. Usually he came awake all at once, ready for action.

Well, the _first_ clue had been the pain, but he ignored that for now. He woke up in pain more often than he liked to think about. However, he'd long ago trained himself to treat pain as an ephemeral state of being; something to be pushed aside to be dealt with later.

He also instinctively knew that he was waking up somewhere unfamiliar, as he was certainly not at home in his own bed. Since that was never a good thing in his experience, he feigned unconsciousness as he found his bearings. The sounds of a beeping heart monitor and the antiseptic smell told him that he was in a hospital. The heaviness of his body, which spoke to painkillers that he didn't like to take, would seem to confirm that fact. He couldn't remember why he would need to be in a hospital, but what he did know was that he hated them.

He forced his heart rate to remain steady, since its acceleration would only bring attention that he didn't want or need at the moment. He didn't think he was wearing handcuffs, which was a good sign, but he couldn't be sure without moving his arm enough that it would alert anyone in the room that he was now awake. His mind was already turning, coming up with a plan on how he was going to make his escape, when he felt a gentle poke on his forearm. His whole body relaxed, knowing instantly who it was, realizing now that he wasn't alone.

It was a very distinctive poke.

He struggled to open his eyes, and when he managed to crack them open he was greeted with the sight of Parker, with her elbows propped up on the edge of his bed and her chin resting on her hands, watching him expectantly. A bright smile bloomed over her face when his eyes met hers.

"Hi," was all she said.

He tried to return the greeting, but the only thing that came out was a rough sort of croaking noise.

"Hold on," Parker told him, jumping to her feet. She returned seconds later with a glass of water and a straw.

Those first few sips were quite possibly the best thing that Eliot had ever tasted, as the cool water quenched his dry mouth and soothed his parched throat. Parker waited patiently, holding the straw to his lips until he'd had his fill and pulled away.

"Thanks, darlin'," he said, his voice still rough.

Parker just nodded, setting the glass on the tray table, before she sat back down, this time on the edge of the bed next to him, and waited for his inevitable questions.

"What happened?" he asked, letting his head fall back heavily against his pillow. "Why am I in the hospital? You know how I feel about hospitals."

"Yeah, I know, but we didn't really have a choice. You got shot twice, fell out a third-story window, and you got in a fight with a tree. Which you lost, in case you were wondering," she added as an unnecessary aside.

"A tree?" he asked confused, sure he couldn't have heard her right. "What?"

"Most of your injuries were caused by the tree you fell through on the way to the ground," Parker explained. "Of course, if you had fallen thirty feet straight to the ground you probably would have died, you were close enough to that as it is. So we should all be grateful that you got your ass kicked by a tree."

Eliot tried to remember what she was talking about, but it was all a haze. The last thing he recalled was standing in the lab looking for the prototype. "The job-"

Parker rolled her eyes. She had just told him that he'd almost died, and he was worried about the con. "You put the thingy in your pocket before you fell," she told him. "We found it when they gave us your personal items."

Her personal interest in the job had ended the second that Eliot had hit the ground. But Nate had taken a few hours to give the prototype back to the client and close out the case once they were sure Eliot was going to live. There had been an unspoken but unanimous decision to table taking down the CEO until the hitter was back on his feet. They'd decide then if it was worth revisiting.

"Where are the others?" Eliot asked curiously. "Is everyone else okay?" He couldn't imagine that they would simply drop him off at the hospital and leave, not as injured as he was. Speaking of which, he should really get around to asking Parker just what exactly _was_ wrong with him.

"Everyone is fine, you're the only one who got hurt," she assured him. "They went home for the night a little while ago," Parker explained. "They'll be back in a few hours."

"What time is it?" he asked, when he realized he had no idea how long he'd been unconscious for, a glance at the window told him it was still dark out, but that didn't narrow it down much.

"It's a little after four-thirty in the morning," she told him.

"I've been out all night?" he asked, surprised.

"Eliot," she said gently, something that was so out of character that it got his full attention immediately, since Parker was rarely anything but brutally blunt, "it's four-thirty on _Sunday_ morning."

Eliot was speechless. The last thing he remembered was going on the job on Tuesday night.

"You had a concussion which caused your brain to swell. You were in a coma for over four days," Parker added, voicing what he was just figuring out. "Which by the way, I did _not_ enjoy. Try not to do that again."

"I'll try," he promised absently, still a little stunned, looking down at the cast on his right arm.

"I told them you'd want a black one," she said following his line of sight. "Hardison said to give you a yellow one so it would match your sunny disposition when you found out you were in the hospital, but they listened to me because I'm your wife."

Eliot choked on thin air which made his chest light up in pain, despite the narcotics coursing through his system. " _What_?" he asked, as he tried to muffle his coughing. She reached for the pitcher to refill his glass, which only brought his attention to the diamond solitaire ring she was wearing on her left hand.

"Our covers," she explained, bringing his cup of water back up to his lips. "We're married, so I'm your medical proxy."

That, of course, made perfect sense, and he blamed the meds for not realizing it immediately.

"I picked black because I figured it wouldn't show blood if you had to beat someone with it," Parker explained her reasoning.

"Darlin', I don't think I'm gonna be getting into fights any time soon."

"You never know," she shrugged.

She had a point. "Besides the concussion and the broken arm, what else is wrong with me?" Eliot finally got around to asking.

As he listened to Parker recite his long list of injuries, he realized that whatever was flowing through his IV was the good stuff, because he was not in nearly the amount of pain he should be in. It also explained why practically his entire torso felt like it was on fire and why his knee was in traction.

"...And they stole your spleen!" Parker rounded out his list of injuries.

"They _stole_ it?" Eliot repeated dubiously.

"Well, they were supposed to just be removing the bullet, but they took your spleen too, _without_ asking. Isn't that the definition of stealing?" she asked, clearly offended on his behalf.

Eliot wanted to laugh, but it hurt what he now knew to be his six broken ribs and shattered collarbone. "Parker, darlin', if the doc felt the need to remove it, I probably wasn't going to be using it anymore."

Parker just scoffed, clearly unconvinced.

Despite the fact he'd apparently just slept for four days, Eliot was exhausted. But he didn't want to fall back asleep just yet, so he continued to make conversation. "So I guess you pulled the short straw in staying here tonight?" he asked.

"I've stayed every night," Parker stated simply.

"Wha-"

Eliot never got to finish his question, as the night nurse chose that moment to walk through the door on her rounds.

"Still not asleep I see, Miss Liz," the nurse, an older woman named Michelle, scolded gently, before stopping short when she realized Parker wasn't the only one not sleeping. "Mr. Pratt, you're awake!" she exclaimed happily. "Lemme go page the doctor."

Parker waited until Michelle was out of earshot before speaking. "I'm Elizabeth, you're William," she spoke quickly, filling him on their cover identities. "We've been married for three years. You're a mechanic and I'm a children's book illustrator. Nate's my brother and Sophie is his wife and they're using their Baker identities."

The nurse came back before she could finish filling him in. "Alright William, I'm just going to take your vitals and then the doctor will be in to run some tests."

Parker stood, letting go of Eliot's hand, neither of them exactly sure when she had started holding it. "I'm going to go call my brother and let him know you're awake."

"Darlin', it's five in the morning," Eliot pointed out, wanting her to come back. He was surprised how cold and bereft his hand felt with hers gone, but he blamed that on the drugs too. "He's gonna be asleep."

"That's half the fun," she replied with a smirk. She leaned over his bed so she could quickly whisper the cover story for his injuries in his ear in case anyone asked him about it, then she dropped a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth, shot him a wink and was gone, calling that she would be back in a few minutes over her shoulder.

"You have quite the devoted wife, Mr. Pratt," Michelle said with a motherly kind of fondness as she checked Eliot's blood pressure. She'd been the nurse on duty the past few nights and had gotten to know Parker while she was on her rounds.

"Uh, please call me Will," Eliot said, his gaze still turned towards the doorway Parker had disappeared through. "She mentioned she's been here every night."

"Not just nights," the nurse said in a confiding tone, thinking she was simply telling a husband something nice about his wife. "According to the day shifts, Miss Liz hasn't left the hospital since you were admitted. She's barely even left this room. Not even when your in-laws have tried to force her to take a break or go home. They have to bring her all her meals because she refuses to even go down to the cafeteria to eat. I don't even think I've seen that girl sleep, she's been so focused on you."

And that was the truth. While the other had taken turns each day, staying at the hospital and sitting at Eliot's bedside, Parker refused to be moved. She was determined to stay right where she was until he woke up, unknowingly playing the part of the distraught young wife to perfection. Her actions didn't go unnoticed by any of the nursing staff in the ICU, who were all talking about the sweet and devoted Mrs. Pratt.

Eliot frowned, thinking that Parker was taking their covers a little too seriously. "She's going to make herself sick that way," he said unhappily.

"I told her that same thing last night," Michelle said, making notes in his chart. "I said to her, 'What would your husband say if he knew you weren't taking care of yourself?' And do you know what she told me?" She continued speaking without waiting for a guess from Eliot. "She said the sweetest thing. She told me, that you're what makes her feel safe enough to sleep well at home, and she was going to make sure that you were safe so you could sleep well and recover faster while you're here at the hospital."

"Oh," was all Eliot could say. That sounded just like Parker logic, and it also meant that it wasn't _just_ their covers that impelled her to stay at his bedside.

"You're a lucky man, to have someone who loves you like that."

Eliot swallowed hard. "I guess I am."

He couldn't dwell on that for too long, because the doctor chose that moment to enter the room, and soon he was put through his paces as the doctor assessed his condition. By the time the doctor was satisfied, Eliot was beyond exhausted and felt ready to sleep for another four days.

Parker must have been hovering just outside the door, staying out of the way, because just moments after the doctor and nurse were walking out of the room, she was slipping inside.

"Your doctor said that they're gonna run some tests later this morning, and as long as everything checks out, they'll move you out of the ICU and into a regular room," she informed him, as she sat back down at his side. "And Nate was very happy to hear you woke up, he's going to call Sophie and Hardison, and they'll all be here to see you in a bit."

Eliot just nodded to show he heard her, speaking out loud feeling like too much effort at the moment. He was fighting a losing battle in trying to keep his eyes open, and Parker didn't fail to notice.

"It's okay, you can sleep," she assured him, seeing how he was fighting it. "I'm here to watch your back."

Eliot nodded again, this time letting his eyes shut on purpose, having faith in Parker's ability to keep him safe while he was vulnerable. Of their own volition, he felt his fingers twitch towards Parker, who knew what he wanted before he did, and slipped her slender hand back into his. Feeling anchored, he finally allowed himself to drift back to sleep.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

"We could just leave," Eliot said casually, glancing at Parker who was shoving another handful of Cinnamon Toast Crunch straight from the box into her mouth, from the corner of his eye. "It's not like they could catch us."

It had been three days since Eliot had first woken up after his accident, and he was very much _over_ being in the hospital. It was a little after four in the morning, the ward was quiet and he couldn't help but consider the fact that now would be the perfect time to sneak away unnoticed.

"You don't have any clothes, you can barely walk the three steps to the bathroom by yourself, and we don't have a car," she replied, not looking away from the Twilight Zone marathon they'd been watching all night. "Plus, Michelle would worry and sound the alarm if we were gone when she came in to do her rounds."

"You're a thief," he reminded her, as if she could have forgotten. "I'm sure you could find me something to wear, steal a wheelchair, procure a getaway car and we could be halfway home before the nurse even notices we're gone."

"Of course _Parker and Eliot_ could do that," she agreed easily, it wouldn't even be a challenge. "But Liz and Will Pratt are good, law abiding citizens who don't steal cars and listen to doctor's orders."

Eliot sighed heavily. Sometimes he really hated it when Parker committed to a character. It really should have been much easier to convince her to plan a great escape. If he'd been alone, he probably would have left already. Sure, it would have been much harder without Parker's help, but he'd escaped more heavily-guarded buildings while in worse shape, several times in the past. But now, he wasn't alone, and he knew he was going to have a hard time going anywhere with Parker playing gatekeeper.

He did have to pause and contemplate the state of the world when _Parker_ was being the responsible one between the two of them. There was something seriously wrong with this picture. But it just boiled down to the fact that he _really_ hated hospitals. It was a cold comfort to realize that if the situation were reversed and Parker was in this hospital bed instead of him, he would have to handcuff her to the bed to keep her from trying to escape. Not that he would actually be able to stop her, it wouldn't even slow her down. But it was the principle of the matter.

"The doctor said he'll probably release you tomorrow," Parker reminded him. "They just want to scan your brain one more time this afternoon to make sure it's not turning to mush. And then we can go home."

"My brain is not turning to _mush_ ," Eliot said, exasperated.

Parker gave him a look like she wasn't entirely convinced. "But wouldn't it be nice to have scientific proof?"

Eliot rolled his eyes and she reached over to pat his arm.

"You can make it one more day, Sparky."

"Can't come soon enough," he complained, trying to scratch under the cast on his right arm without moving his left arm too much and aggravating his broken collarbone.

He didn't see why he needed to stay here when he could lay in bed and do nothing at home just as easily. If there was anything he knew, it was how to nurse his own injuries.

From what he'd been told, there had been some initial fuss about visitor limits and visiting hours in the ICU, but after Hardison made a sizable donation in the Pratt family's name, word came down from on high to look the other way when it came to certain policies. That was all well and good when he'd been unconscious, but now Eliot was fairly confident that the donation that the hacker had made on his behalf had backfired. At least as far as he was concerned. Because now, instead of wanting to send him home as quickly as possible to free up the bed, Eliot, or rather William, was now considered a VIP and his doctors insisted on running every test known to man on him, wanting to triple and quadruple check that they hadn't possibly missed anything, despite the fact that he was _sure_ he would have been fine to go home several days ago.

"I know how much you hate being here," she offered in a tone that was as close to sympathetic as Parker got.

"Doubt it," he muttered surlily.

"My first memory is waking up in a hospital," she revealed, "in a body cast from the waist down."

Eliot's gaze snapped to Parker, who appeared to be reading the ingredients list on her box of cereal with far more focus than was necessary, especially for someone he knew had never cared about a nutritional fact in her life.

"What happened?" he asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know the answer. "How old were you?"

"Dunno," she shrugged, shooting him a wry sort of half grin. "Like I said, I don't remember anything before that. I was little, I know that. Too little to really know what was going on, but it felt like I was there forever. I had a whole bunch of roommates that moved though, and they always had moms and dads and other family staying with them or visiting. But I just remember being alone most of the time except for the doctors and nurses, until a social worker came to visit. I liked her at first because she brought me Jell-o, but then she told me that I wasn't allowed to go back home again. I went straight from the hospital to my first foster placement."

"Jesus, Parker," Eliot breathed, suddenly understanding why the woman who enjoyed anything and everything sugar-based had such a visceral dislike of Jell-o.

"So yeah," she said, "I get what it's like to hate being stuck in a hospital bed."

"I guess you do," he replied, at a loss for anything else to say. He knew instinctively that this was a story she'd never shared with anyone else, and realizing that made the fact that she'd stuck by his side this whole time all the more meaningful.

"But the good news," she said brightly, visibly shaking off the memory, "is that my hips didn't heal right. Which is why they're double-jointed and partially why I'm so flexible. So that's definitely come in handy over the years."

Eliot really didn't know what to say to that either, but then Parker yawned so hard her eyes watered.

Sophie and Hardison both regularly urged to go home and get a good night's sleep, but Parker steadfastly refused. Their efforts had redoubled since Eliot had woken up, but she'd only dug her heels in further. Eliot himself had only suggested it once, before seeing the stubborn set of her jaw and realizing it was futile. Only Nate left her alone about it, knowing all too well that everyone reacted differently to having someone they cared about in the hospital.

"Why don't you get some sleep, darlin'," he suggested.

"I'm fine," she responded automatically.

"You're exhausted and we both know it," Eliot replied sternly.

He knew she had to be sleeping at some point. While they were both adept at functioning on way less sleep than normal people, it was physically impossible for anyone to stay awake for a week at a time. But since he'd woken up a few days ago, Eliot had yet to see her fall asleep. Once when she'd left the room to use the restroom, Nate had mentioned his theory that she had been sneaking off to an air vent somewhere to take cat naps whenever he was out of the room having tests done. But she always unfailingly reappeared just minutes after he was wheeled back in, so they couldn't be sure.

"I'm not telling you to go home." He knew she wouldn't, so there was no point in trying. "But why don't you just close your eyes for awhile," he encouraged. He continued when he saw the resolve weakening in her tired eyes. "I slept on and off all day, so I'm wide awake," he added, knowing how much she hated sleeping somewhere unsecured. "But you can nap for a little while. I'm just gonna watch TV until the others get here in a couple hours."

Parker sighed and looked out the window for a moment while she considered her options. She could force herself to stay awake and they both knew it. Sleep deprivation wasn't anything new to her. But she'd been running on nothing more than snippets of sleep at a time for a week now, and it was catching up with her. A nap really did sound good.

"Fine, just for a little while," she finally agreed.

Eliot had expected her to lean back in the recliner she had been camped out in the last couple days, so he was surprised when instead she folded over in the chair and rested her arms and head on the edge of the bed near his hip. It wasn't that he minded. It was just unexpected. He was less surprised when it only took a few minutes for her breathing to even out, as she fell almost immediately into a deep sleep.

He didn't even realize he was doing it at first, but as the sun rose that morning, he found himself gently running his fingers through her hair as she slept. The repetitive motion was soothing and he was in a semi-trance state while he continued to watch TV. Which was the only reason that he didn't realize it had gotten as late as it was, when Hardison burst through the door at nine, with Nate and Sophie trailing behind him.

"I've come bearing the gifts of donuts," the hacker called, announcing his presence. "Don't all thank me at once."

"Dammit Hardison!" Eliot growled, when Parker shot up straight in her chair with a gasp, startled out of her sleep.

"What? I said I brought donuts," Hardison repeated placatingly, giving the pink box in his hand a little shake.

"Parker was finally sleeping," Eliot informed him with a glare.

"No I wasn't," Parker denied reflexively.

Eliot rolled his eyes, but didn't bother correcting her.

"Sorry Mama, didn't mean to wake ya," Hardison apologized genuinely, knowing how little sleep she had gotten over the past week. "Here, have some donuts," he added, handing over the box, knowing that gifts of sugar was the best apology in Parker's opinion, second only to cash or diamonds.

"How are you feeling this morning, Eliot?" Sophie asked, handing the hitter a bag with a breakfast sandwich from his favorite deli, knowing he would appreciate that more than Hardison's donuts or anything the hospital cafeteria could cook up.

"Like I'm ready to get out of here."

"Yes, I've actually been giving that a lot of thought," Sophie mentioned. "About what you're going to do when you get out of here."

"What are you talking about?" Eliot asked his brow furrowed, as he carefully unwrapped the sandwich without aggravating his injuries. "I'm going to go home."

"Well, of course you are," she agreed, before clarifying. "I just mean that you're going to need some assistance around the house while you're recuperating."

"I'll be fine Soph," he said flatly. "This isn't the first time I've gotten hurt."

"Eliot, dear," Sophie began again. "You've been shot twice, had major surgery, been in a coma, have over half a dozen broken bones, you've got two bad arms and one bad leg. You can't possibly think we're just going to leave you to fend for yourself."

Eliot opened his mouth to interject, but Sophie wasn't done yet.

"I was thinking we could make up a schedule. That way we could make sure that you always have someone available-"

"That's not necessary," Eliot interrupted.

"I think it is," Sophie disagreed. "See, I was there yesterday when your physical therapist was giving Parker your rehab instructions and what your limitations will be, as you heal. And we wouldn't want you hurting yourself by trying to overdo it."

Eliot grit his teeth. He understood why the physical therapist would have had that conversation with his 'wife', if Eliot really _was_ just a mechanic who'd had a freak accident. But he wasn't. He knew his own body and how to rehab it better than someone he'd only met a couple days ago.

"I don't need to be babysat," he ground out. "And I _really_ don't need y'all traipsing around my house at all hours of the day and night." He turned his attention to Nate who'd been silent so far. "Would you talk some sense into her?" he asked, exasperated.

"Do you think I'm capable of that?" Nate countered, bemused. "Besides, she isn't entirely wrong. I know you're a fast healer and that you know how to take care of yourself, but you're still going to need some extra help for awhile."

"Yeah, man," Hardison agreed. "We're happy to help out. You always take care of everyone else, let us return the favor. You don't have to be all self-sufficient all the time."

Eliot was seriously about to lose it on all of them, when a muffled _something_ came from the corner where Parker was sitting. All four of them turned to look at the thief, sitting there with a maple cruller in one hand, a cream-filled in the other, and her mouth stuffed with another donut entirely.

"What was that, Parker?" Nate asked.

This time she chewed and swallowed before speaking. "I said, don't make a schedule. That's dumb. I'll just stay at Eliot's until he's cool to stay by himself," she volunteered. It was what she had been planning on doing anyway. "I am the one that all the doctors and nurses have been telling the homecare information to, right? No reason to make it into a big deal."

Nate, Sophie, and Hardison all started talking over each other, each giving their opinion on why they thought that was a terrible idea. As much as they all loved Parker, none of them could imagine a scenario where she was living with Eliot full time, and not driving him absolutely nuts while also being a terrible caregiver.

"Would all of you... _shut up_!" Eliot shouted over the din. "No schedule! Parker can stay with me."

His announcement stunned the others into silence for just a moment, before they all started speaking at the same time again.

Eliot and Parker shared a look that encompassed an entire conversation.

Sure, the other members of their team had no idea how much time Parker already spent over at Eliot's place. And yeah, as a result they didn't realize how accustomed they already were to cohabiting, whereas the other three would definitely be an unwelcome intrusion into his personal space.

But even before they had settled into their current arrangement, Eliot still would have picked Parker over the other three to give him an extra hand if he really needed it. Hardison was squeamish when it came to any sort of blood or wounds. Nate would be awkward about it and make them both uncomfortable. And Sophie would try to baby him until he started contemplating jumping out _another_ window just to get away from her. Parker, though, despite her propensity for poking at his bruises, with her steady hands and solid stomach, was always the one he went to if he needed stitches somewhere he couldn't reach himself. She had a certain practicality when it came to these things. Not liking to be babied or ask for help herself, she seemed to know instinctively when to help without asking, when to offer help, and when to leave well enough alone.

"I think I should be insulted," Parker said conversationally, taking a bite of the maple donut and wrinkling her nose as she chewed.

"I think you should be too," Eliot agreed with a frown, seemingly more offended on Parker's behalf than she was for herself.

Realizing what they were doing, Sophie tried to backtrack, not so much in what they were saying, but at least the way they were saying it. "It's just, what we're all just trying to say is, are you sure this is what would be best? I think even Parker would admit that she's not exactly the most…" she paused to find the most diplomatic word, " _nurturing_ person in the world."

Eliot was torn on whether to tell her that that was part of Parker's appeal since he didn't need a nursemaid, or defending Parker's ability to care about someone other than herself.

"I'm the one who knows all the homecare information," Parker pointed out yet again.

"Only because they think ya'll are married," Hardison retorted. "Parker, you do realize you ain't _actually_ married, right?"

"Dammit Hardison!" Eliot exclaimed, but he was distracted from what else he was gonna say when when the woman in question reached over to put one of her donuts in his free hand. "Why are you handing me this?" he asked, even as he took the partially-eaten cruller.

"Because I don't want that one anymore," Parker answered, already picking through the box for a replacement, clearly having lost interest in the conversation happening around them. "And because you killed your sandwich."

Eliot looked down and saw that at some point, in his irritation, he'd accidentally mutilated his breakfast and he now had bacon, egg, and cheese mashed into his cast. Rolling his eyes, he dropped the mangled sandwich on the tray table in disgust.

"Decision made, conversation over," Eliot said firmly, taking a bite of the donut Parker rejected.

Sophie wasn't ready to give up the fight, "I just think-"

"That's enough, Soph," Nate interjected. He looked back and forth between his hitter and his thief like he was seeing them with new eyes. "Eliot is not a child and it's his decision to make."

Hardison was the next to try to protest. "But-"

"I'm sure they'll be fine," Nate said, cutting off Hardison as well.

Before anyone else could speak, the nurse came in at that moment on her morning rounds and derailed the conversation. Eliot was sure that he hadn't heard the end of this, but he'd take the reprieve.

The conversation stayed light for the rest of the morning, time passing quickly, and soon it was almost time for Eliot's final round of scans before the doctor gave the okay for his release. Right before the tech came to retrieve him, Parker, reenergized by four solid hours of sleep and half a box of donuts, slipped her shoes on before grabbing her jacket and her bag.

"Where are you going, Parker?" Sophie asked curiously, since the thief hadn't shown any interest in leaving the hospital for the last week.

"Eliot's gonna need clothes and a getaway car for his great escape tomorrow," she said, thinking back to the conversation they'd had that morning. "I'm going to go get both. Do you want the truck or the Charger?" she asked Eliot.

"Why does it matter?" Hardison asked, when the hitter took a moment to consider his options. "He's not going to be driving either for awhile."

"Because one is going to be hard to get into, the other is going to be hard to get out of," Nate explained, impressed by Parker's foresight.

"Bring the truck," Eliot decided, figuring that was the better choice with his particular set of injuries. "It's at Nate's though."

"That's okay, I'll go pick it up first," she shrugged.

"Anyone know where my keys ended up?" he asked, realizing that he had no idea.

"Don't worry about it, I don't need them," Parker assured him, before anyone could answer.

"Do **not** hotwire my truck," he said sternly.

She rolled her eyes, "I meant, I know where you keep your spare."

He was not at all convinced that that was what she had meant initially. "And drive it like you're a normal, boring person," he added. "Not like you're auditioning for a monster truck rally."

"You never let me have any fun," she sighed, before flitting out of the room.

"Wait, how is she gonna get to Nate's to pick up Eliot's truck?" Hardison asked, once she was gone.

"It's Parker," Sophie shrugged, figuring that was explanation enough.

"And why does she know where you keep your spare keys?" the hacker continued.

"It's _Parker_ ," Nate echoed for the same reason.

"But how is she-"

Eliot didn't even let him finish his question. " _Because it's Parker_!"

* * *

A/N And there we have it, first chapter of the new year! We're now officially half way through this story so it would please me ever so much if you all let me know what you thought!


	9. Some Words Carry Weight

A/N hello everyone! I had a rather difficult technological week, my laptop died completely unexpectedly and I had to buy a new one... I am VERY glad I write in google docs which backups automatically or else I would have lost everything and I wouldn't have this to post today... so here's your friendly reminder that if you don't already do it make sure to back up your stuff regularly! As always thanks go to Alexandra926 for being awesome :D

* * *

It had taken all morning and a large portion of the afternoon to get Eliot's, or more accurately William Pratt's, discharge paperwork completed and signed off on, but he was finally a free man. He thought he was going to go crazy sitting through the cavalcade of doctors and specialists parading through his hospital room. All of them insistent on giving him strict home care instructions (which he would only loosely follow), physical therapy programs (which he would ignore in favor of his own routines), and mandatory follow up appointments (which he had every intention of skipping entirely).

But now he was finally out, dressed in his own clothes, sitting in his own truck, driving back to his own house. He'd been escaping a POW camp the last time he'd been this happy to be free. He could not wait to go home and finally be _alone_. Well, Parker would be there, but Eliot didn't count her as an intrusion, he'd long since become accustomed to having her in his personal space.

What was more important was that he would finally be free of nurses bugging him every four hours for his vitals, and free of his other teammates' constant hovering. He appreciated that they cared, but enough was enough. Both Sophie and Hardison had made overtures about wanting to come and help him settle in back home, but he had put his foot down in staunch refusal. He had assured them that all he was going to do when he got home was take a shower and settle into his own bed, and he most certainly didn't need an audience for that.

However, as excited as she was to finally be going home, there was one thing that was nagging at the back of his mind.

Eliot glanced over at the woman in the driver seat, who was currently tapping her fingers on the steering wheel and humming off-key to the country rock song playing on the radio while they sat at a red light. Sensing his gaze, she looked over at him, and gave him a soft smile before the light turned green and they continued to inch their way through the daily Boston rush hour traffic. She was obviously just as pleased to be out of the hospital as he was, but he couldn't help but wonder if the discussion he'd accidentally overheard between Nate and Sophie the day before, had any grain of truth to it.

The nurse had been wheeling him back to his room after his last set of scans, when he'd unintentionally eavesdropped on a conversation where Sophie had expressed concern that Parker had some misplaced guilt about his injuries. And that perhaps that was the reason she'd been so focused on him, and why she was being so insistent about being the one to help him recover. They'd noticed his return before Nate could respond, but it hadn't escaped his notice that the mastermind wasn't exactly jumping to allay Sophie's worries.

Not one to let these kinds of things stew, he decided to just ask her about it.

"Hey Parker?" he asked, getting her attention. "You know my accident wasn't your fault, right?"

"You got _shot,_ Eliot. I wouldn't call that an _accident_ ," she replied dryly.

Of course that would be the portion of the sentence she would focus on. "Whatever, but you do know it's not your fault?" he asked again.

She gave him a look like she wasn't sure if they should have released him from the hospital. "Obviously. _I_ wasn't the one who shot you."

Eliot rolled his eyes. That's what he got for eavesdropping on Sophie and Nate.

"Why would you ask me that?" Parker asked, genuinely confused.

"Something I overheard Sophie say to Nate," he said dismissively, carefully adjusting the sling that was supporting his bad shoulder so the strap wouldn't rub against his neck. "She was worried you might feel guilty about me getting hurt or something, and that's why…" he trailed off, feeling stupid for even bringing it up.

"That's why, what?" she prompted.

Eliot sighed, she was gonna make him say it. "And that's why you stayed at the hospital and why you said you'd stay at home with me."

"Well that's stupid," Parker said, bluntly. "Why would I do that? Is that a thing that people do?"

"I don't know, Parker," Eliot said, seriously regretting starting this conversation entirely. "I guess. Maybe."

They drove in silence for another block and a half, before Parker spoke again.

"You took care of me when I got sick after the job at the canyon place, but you didn't give me the flu," she pointed out, trying to work her way through it. "That was that guy on the plane's fault. Or maybe even Nate's, for making us stay out in the cold all night. But you're the one who helped me get better."

"It's the _Grand_ Canyon," he corrected reflexively, even though her statement made him worry about her motivations for a different reason. "And that's not a favor you should feel like you have to repay. You don't owe me anything."

"What? No, that's not what I meant." Parker let out a frustrated huff, not sure how to express herself. Not even entirely sure she understood what she was feeling exactly. "Why did you insist on taking care of me when I was sick?" she asked, instead.

"Because..." Eliot wasn't sure how this had gotten turned around on him. "I wouldn't have been able to sleep if I didn't know you were being taken care of properly," he admitted honestly. "I didn't like the idea of you being sick and alone."

"But _why_?" she continued to press. "I would have been okay on my own. It's not the 1800s, I wasn't gonna die from the flu. But you practically kidnapped me, instead of just taking me home like I asked you to."

"I didn't _kidnap_ you," he rolled his eyes.

Parker rolled her eyes as well, because he kind of did, even if she didn't exactly try too hard to get away. "You're not answering my question."

"Because…" he huffed, before trailing off. Just because he understood his feelings better than Parker understood hers, didn't mean he was much better at expressing them. "I just did. Because I care."

"You'd be okay at home by yourself. You've been hurt bad before and figured it out on your own. I know that," she said with a shrug. "But I still want to be there. It's not guilt, it's not payback. It _just is_ ," she said, with a decisive nod, clearly feeling that that was all that needed to be said on the topic.

Eliot supposed that _was_ all that she had to say. He happened to be fluent in Parker and was fairly confident that in her own Parker way, she just told him that she cared too. The barest hint of a smile upturned the corners of his mouth as he turned to look out the passenger side window. He'd been pretty sure she did, but it was still nice to hear.

Before he knew it, they were pulling into the parking structure below Eliot's building. Parker took the turns at only ten miles an hour over what she should have, which Eliot knew meant that she was actually using a great deal of restraint. Whether it was in deference to his threats about the way she drove his truck or his injuries, he didn't know, but he'd take what he could get.

As soon as she pulled into the empty parking space next to his Charger, Parker was out of the cab and rounding the back of the truck before Eliot even managed his seat belt. When he did finally manage to ease himself out of his seat, he frowned when he saw what Parker had waiting for him.

"No," he said, shaking his head at the wheelchair the hospital had insisted they take with them.

"Yes," she replied.

"No," he repeated. "I only used it at the hospital because it's policy and it was the only way they'd let me leave. I don't need it."

"Yeah, you kinda do," she retorted. "You're not supposed to be walking that much on your knee yet."

" _Parker_."

" _Eliot_."

He sent her a glare that would make hardened killers wince, but she didn't even blink.

"There's no one here to impress," Parker finally said, breaking the standoff they were having. "It's just me, and you haven't impressed me in years."

Eliot's brow furrowed. "Thanks, Parker."

Even _she_ knew that that had come out wrong. "No, that's not what I meant. Lemme try again."

She huffed loudly as she tried to think through exactly what she wanted to say. Words weren't her strong point and she knew it. One of her favorite parts of her relationship with Eliot was that even though he would roll his eyes and tell her she was crazy, or that there was something wrong with her, he also _got_ her. He usually knew what she meant, without her having to spell it out. Sometimes he understood what she meant, even when she herself didn't even know.

But she knew that sometimes words were necessary, and right now it felt important that she get it right.

"I mean... that you haven't _needed_ to impress me in years," she said, amending her prior comment. "I know exactly what you can do and what you're capable of. I'm never going to think you're anything less than the toughest man I've ever known, even when you're all shot up and broken. Trying to get upstairs on your own isn't going to do anything but hurt you, and I don't like watching you hurt," she said frankly and honestly.

The hitter just looked at her for a long time, not saying or doing anything.

"Unless," she felt the need to add, "I'm the one poking at your bruises." Then she reached out with one finger and deliberately pressed on the edge of his black eye.

He flinched back with a glare that Parker returned with a grin. Rolling his eyes, he sighed and sat down in the chair, only pouting and grumbling under his breath a little, as Eliot let her push him through the parking structure towards the elevator and then down the hall to his condo.

Eliot breathed as deeply as his broken ribs allowed when Parker unlocked his front door and he was finally home.

"Shower?" Parker asked, practically reading his mind, already pushing the chair down the hall to his bathroom.

"Hell yes. I need to wash the stink of hospital off me," he said eagerly.

Without prompting, Parker helped him remove his knee brace and the sling for his shoulder, before helping him ease off the oversized, zippered hoodie she'd brought him to wear home, over his casted arm and bad shoulder. Hardison had made a comment about her forgetting to bring him a shirt, but since he currently couldn't raise his left arm above his head, it had been a calculated move that Eliot had appreciated, not an oversight on her part. Once she had provided the assistance he'd needed, but would never ask for, Parker wordlessly slipped out the bathroom door like she'd never been there at all.

Once he managed to get himself into the shower, he didn't want to get out. And between the bench seat, the tankless water heater and the multiple shower heads, there wasn't much reason to. He wasn't sure exactly how long he let the hot water soothe away the sore muscles caused from being stuck in a hospital bed as much as from his injuries. It wasn't until he realized he was starting to prune, that he washed his hair as best he could with two bad arms, and finally got out of the shower.

He didn't even bother to feign surprise when he realized that his favorite pair of pajama pants and a pair of clean boxers had materialized on the vanity while he had been in the shower. Parker had long since proven she was capable of slipping in and out of rooms he was in without him noticing. He carefully made his way back to his bedroom, and was sitting down on the edge of his bed contemplating whether he had the ability to get his knee brace back on by himself, when he heard the front door slam.

"Where'd you run off to?" Eliot asked curiously, when Parker let herself into his room a few seconds later.

"I cleaned out the fridge and took the trash out to the chute," she said, with a wrinkle of her nose, as she dropped the paper bag from the hospital pharmacy and other various medical supplies on the bed and picked up his knee brace.

The sour look on her face told him a lot about the state of his perishables. That was what happened as a result of making an effort to cook food that didn't contain preservatives. Normally, he made a point of clearing out the fridge if he knew he was going to be gone more than a couple of days to avoid that problem, but of course this time there had been extenuating circumstances.

"All the leftovers were bad, so I called for pizza," Parker mentioned, as she wrapped the brace that went from his mid-thigh, down to mid-calf, around his leg. "Too tight?" she asked, once she had the last velcro strap in place.

"No, it's fine," he assured her. "You order from Gino's?"

"Of course," she said, getting up off her knees and sitting next to him on the bed, ripping open the pharmacy bag. "So it'll be here in like an hour."

Eliot rolled his eyes, knowing she was right. Gino's was by far the best pizza in the area, but they made up for it in their slow delivery time. After spending a week in the hospital, though, eating shitty cafeteria food, he was willing to wait for it.

She dropped the bottle of pain pills that they both knew he probably wouldn't take on the nightstand, and grabbed a tube of topical antibiotic out of the bag, quickly reading the instructions before twisting off the cap. Despite the fact he'd been on a full course of IV antibiotics, he'd woken up that morning with the surgery incision over his collarbone looking pinker than it should and slightly inflamed. So the doctor had sent him home with a prescription for antibiotic cream, just to be safe.

"The doc did a good job on the stitches," he said idly, watching as Parker carefully dabbed the cream onto the healing wound. "Probably won't even leave too bad of a scar." Not that he really cared. He'd stitched himself up with dental floss and a sewing needle in dirty motels and safe houses one too many times to care about the aesthetics.

"I like your scars," Parker mentioned off-handedly, as she spread the antibiotic over where he'd gotten shot in the stomach as well.

"Really?" he said, making a conscious effort to not tense his stomach muscles under her feather-light touch. "Why?" he couldn't help but ask. He'd known lots of women over the years who'd had a _thing_ for guys with scars. It had even gotten him laid on more than one occasion, but he had a hard time imagining Parker in that camp.

"Because," she said with a shrug, reaching up to attend to the stitches he had right at his hairline while she was at it. Focused on her task, she was completely oblivious to the way Eliot was carefully watching her face. "Because it means that something bad happened to you, but that you survived and put yourself back together. They're reminders that you healed. I think scars are comforting."

"I never really thought about it that way," Eliot said honestly, as he watched her rip open packets of gauze so she could redress his wounds.

"I have scars, too," she mentioned, as she carefully applied tape to his shoulder.

"Do you?" He'd never really noticed any major ones on her, and considering how blasé she was about clothes, he figured he would have by now. Of course, with skin as pale as hers, they'd be much harder to see at a glance.

She nodded. "Yeah, but I think most of mine are on the inside where people can't see them. I can still feel them though," she said absently rubbing a hand against her chest over her heart, "rough and bumpy where things should be smooth."

Eliot didn't know what to say to that.

"But I don't mind," she mused, finally looking up to meet his eyes while applying the last piece of medical tape to his stomach. "It just means that I'm a survivor, too."

Of its own volition, Eliot's hand moved to cover Parker's where it was still smoothing the tape against his skin, running his thumb over the back of her knuckles. "That you are, darlin'," he agreed softly, keeping her gaze.

The moment stretched out longer than either of them would normally be comfortable with, and Eliot couldn't help but feel like Parker was looking for something in his face. Whether or not she found it, he would never know, because his cell phone rang and shattered the moment.

Pulling away, Parker stood up and gathered the trash left over from his dressings, and Eliot glanced at the phone sitting on his night stand. The flashing caller ID told him it was Sophie and he was highly tempted to let it go to voicemail. But he knew that if he didn't answer she would worry, and she was already itching for a reason to send in the cavalry.

"What is it, Sophie?" Eliot answered the phone, not even attempting to hide the annoyance in his tone.

He was vaguely aware of Sophie prattling on in his ear, but he was more focused on tracking Parker's movement around his bedroom. He rolled his eyes, but didn't protest when she went digging in his dresser for what he knew to be her favorite shirt of his to wear before disappearing into his bathroom. She didn't bother shutting the door all the way and he could hear the water in the shower turn on.

"What?" Eliot growled, cluing back into the conversation happening over the phone when Sophie called his name sharply. "Everything is fine, Sophie. I took a shower, now I'm in bed, just like I told you I was going to do before we left the hospital."

He continued to pay half attention to Sophie, and half-tried to figure out what it was Parker was singing to herself in the shower. He chuckled lowly when he realized she was butchering 'We Didn't Start The Fire', and was substituting things she had stolen, for the actual lyrics. The sound of amusement wasn't lost on the grifter who asked him what was so funny.

"Par-" he cut himself off when he realized he had absolutely no desire or inclination to explain. "It's nothing," he said instead. "And no, Parker and I haven't killed each other yet, since that's what you're worried about."

Sophie tried to deny it, but Eliot knew that's why she'd really called. He heard Hardison shouting about something in the background and had no doubt that all three of them were probably sitting around around talking about him right now.

"I'm hanging up now," he said, over her protestations. "Goodbye, Sophie."

He hit the End button, and tossed the cell phone onto the bed with a spike of irritation. He laid back against his pillows and closed his eyes, silently stewing at the way his teammates were treating him like an invalid. Sure, this was the worst he'd been hurt since they'd formed Leverage, but this wasn't the worst he'd _ever_ been hurt. There was a reason he usually downplayed or hid his injuries from the team. He was the hitter; it was his job to take the punishment. He couldn't have the team doubting his ability to do so.

It wasn't until he realized that Parker was still singing her Billy Joel-inspired ode to crime that he felt the tension leak out of his shoulders, and a small smirk formed at the corner of his mouth. It was just such an essentially Parker thing to do. And as he listened carefully, he was realizing that she was revealing new thefts that she'd never claimed before, at least not to him.

She was singing another round of the correct chorus, which he supposed took on a different meaning when paired with her new verses, when the doorbell rang, announcing the pizza delivery. He was carefully swinging his legs out of bed, so that he could go answer the door since Parker was still in the shower, when he heard the woman in question yelp, what sounded like a shampoo bottle hitting the floor with a clatter and the water shut off. He hadn't even stood before Parker came skittering out of the bathroom blindly, narrowly missing the doorjamb, as she struggled to pull the flannel shirt over her wet body, since she hadn't bothered to take the time to dry off.

"Pizza, pizza, pizza," she chanted, as she dashed down the hall, leaving Eliot shaking his head. She came back a few minutes later at a slightly more sedate pace, since she was now balancing the pizza box, a bag of garlic knots, two plates, two glasses, a two-liter bottle of soda and an entire roll of paper towels. It seemed that all those cons where she'd been forced to be 'the waitress' were finally coming in handy.

"Where do you think you're going?" Eliot asked, plucking the roll of paper towels from the top of the tower so that he could see her face.

"Where do you think _you're_ going?" she asked right back, when he met her halfway to the bedroom door.

"We're not eating greasy pizza in my bed," he said firmly. "I don't eat in bed."

"Come on. Make an exception, just this once," she wheedled, easily stepping around him. "We're having a pizza and pajama party. And it has to be in bed while watching an eighties movie. It's the rules."

" _What_?" he asked, giving her his patented 'what's wrong with you?' look. "Says who?"

"Says the movie that Sophie made me watch with her while you were in your coma last week," she said, setting her bounty down on the nightstand on the far side of the room, before plopping herself down on the middle of his bed. "I didn't really get the movie, but I know there was pizza and pajamas and a movie."

"Oh, come on," he groaned. "You're gonna get my comforter all wet," he pointed out, since she was still dripping from her shower.

Parker didn't reply and instead made him up a plate and waved it tantalizingly in his direction.

He rolled his eyes and gave in, hobbling back over to the bed and sitting down. "You're a pain in the ass, you know that right?" he said, without much bite.

Parker just grinned unrepentantly and leaned over him to put the drink she'd just poured for him on his side of the bed. When he realized that she'd found a straw somewhere to make it easier for him since he couldn't really grip a glass very well with the cast on his hand, he mentally amended the description to a _thoughtful_ pain in the ass, but still a pain.

"I told the delivery guy that I was surprised how fast he got here," Parker mentioned conversationally, as she made up her own plate. "And he said that next time I should just ask for Joey when I order and he'll get it here even faster."

"He's probably just hoping you'll answer the door like that again," Eliot grumbled, well aware of the picture she made, still wet from the shower, wearing his flannel shirt and nothing else. A wave of protective possessiveness roiled through his gut, and he was tempted to go track down the delivery guy and make him pay for seeing her like that, let alone commenting on it, and he had to remind himself he didn't have the right to feel that way.

"Like what?" she asked naively.

"Don't worry about it," he told her, mentally making a note to be sure that _he_ answered the door the next time they had pizza delivered.

They ate in companionable silence while they watched Die Hard on TV, since it was a movie that they both enjoyed _and_ it fulfilled Parker's requirement of being from the eighties. Once they were done eating, she took the leftovers and the dishes out to the kitchen, and when she came back a few minutes later, she had ice packs from the freezer, which he gratefully took. He'd been more active today than he had been since the accident and he was definitely feeling it. Once she had helped him settle one over his knee, one on his left shoulder, and the third under his right arm where the worst of his broken ribs were, she climbed back into his bed. This time, though, sliding underneath the covers next to him like she had every right to be there. Watching her settle in, Eliot's brow furrowed, but he didn't comment on it.

"What?" Parker asked, when she saw Eliot glance in her direction for tenth time in as many minutes. "Do I have sauce on my face?"

"What? No," he assured her quickly, outwardly focusing his attention on John McClane's exploits.

Inwardly, though, he was trying to figure out why Parker's presence in his bed was tripping him up so badly. It wasn't really any different than all the evenings they'd spent watching TV on his couch, was it? Or even the whole time she'd spent keeping him company while he was in the hospital these past few days. He was picking at a loose thread on the cold pack on his shoulder - Parker's favorite because raccoons are nature's thieves - when it hit him.

 _Parker was the first woman that had ever been in his bed._

He had made it a habit to never bring women home to his place. He'd go to theirs or even to a hotel, but never to his own home.

Over the years, he had drawn a lot of lines in the sand, he'd built a lot of walls, and yet it seemed like every time he turned around, Parker was there, jumping right over them and knocking them down. And the kicker was that she didn't even have the faintest idea that she was doing it. He didn't know if that made it better or worse.

He stole another glance at the woman who was the current occupation of his thoughts. She was busy critiquing John McClane's air vent traversing skills and he couldn't help the smirk that curled at the corners of his mouth. Deciding that the day had been long enough as it was, he made the conscious decision to let go of any implications of his recent revelation, and just relax against his pillows and finish watching the movie.

By the time the movie was over, and despite the fact that it wasn't what anyone would consider late, Eliot was ready for bed.

"Alright Parker, I'm done for the night," he said, picking up the remote to turn off the TV. The bone-deep exhaustion that always came with healing from a major injury, combined with the fact that he'd expelled more energy today than he had since his accident, meant that he was more than ready to go to sleep.

"Yeah, me too," she agreed readily. She was no stranger to sleep deprivation, but it had been over a week now since she'd gotten her last full night of sleep, and she was looking forward to a solid eight hours in a real bed.

Eliot waited for Parker to get up and leave and when she didn't, he looked at her askance. "I'm going to go to sleep now," he said slowly, in case she hadn't understood the first time.

"I'm not stopping you," she said, in the same tone, still making no indication that she intended to move any time soon.

"That means you gotta go," he said, gesturing to the door.

"But I'm gonna sleep too," she said.

"Well you can't do that here," he insisted. "You have your own room and your own bed for that."

Parker looked at him, then glanced towards the door, and then back to Eliot. "I don't wanna. I want to stay here."

"What? No, Parker," he growled. "I'm not letting you stay here and watch me sleep. That's weird and creepy. Even for you."

Parker frowned unhappily. "I watched you sleep at the hospital and nobody said it was weird."

"That was different," he told her.

"Why?"

"It just is," he ground out. "But I'm home now, and I'm fine, so go to your room so I can get some rest."

Parker's eyes darted around the room, and Eliot frowned when he read the expression on her face. Her eyes had the wild, almost panicky look that she sometimes got, usually when she felt overwhelmed by something that she didn't know how to express. She looked like she wanted to bolt, but was also miserable about that fact.

"What's going on with you?" he asked, his voice soft.

"I want to stay here," she said softly, not meeting his eye.

"So you said. But _why_?" He was genuinely confused by her actions. This wasn't just typical Parker weirdness, which he was well accustomed to. There was something more going on here.

"Because…." she trailed off with a frustrated huff. "Fine, I'll leave," she said, throwing back the covers.

"Parker," he said, a hint of warning in his tone, before she could disappear. "Look at me." He waited until she reluctantly met his eye. "Now, what's wrong?"

Parker bit down on her bottom lip so hard, he was afraid she was going to make herself bleed. But before she could break the skin, she started talking.

"Your heart stopped!" she exclaimed, the words leaving her in a rush. "For seventy-two seconds, _your heart stopped_."

Eliot's eyes widened at the force of her tone. He'd honestly not thought much of it after the doctor told him what had happened while he was on the table. They'd gotten his heart restarted before there was any damage, so he didn't see the point of dwelling on it. He hadn't realized it was still weighing so heavy on Parker's mind.

"Darlin'," he began gently.

"And then," she cut him off, not done talking, "when you were in that coma, the doctors didn't know when you were going to wake up. _If_ you were gonna wake up. They just said that the longer you stayed unconscious, the greater the odds that…" she trailed off, not wanting to finish that sentence.

"Parker, I-"

She interrupted again, now on a roll. "So I waited and I watched. There wasn't anything else I could do." Tears started brimming in her eyes as she relived those first few days. "I couldn't leave, because there was a part of me that was so scared that if I stopped listening to the monitors beeping or if I stopped watching your chest rise and fall _for even a minute_ , that maybe they'd stop. Again. And you would be gone. That you'd _leave me_."

In all the years he had known her, Eliot could count the number of times he'd seen Parker cry on one hand. He just couldn't believe that this time, it was over _him_. He had a weakness for any woman in tears, but there was something about seeing _Parker_ cry that especially cut him to the quick.

"Sweetheart, you should know that it takes a lot more than a couple of measly bullets and a little tumble to put me down for good," he reassured her. He reached over and took her hand in his as best he could with the cast on it.

"I know," she agreed easily, scrubbing at her face with her free hand, wiping away the errant tears. "It's just…" she hesitated as she once again found herself searching for the perfect words to express her feelings. "I don't want to live in a world that doesn't have Eliot Spencer in it. I don't know how to anymore."

Eliot was actually speechless. He was pretty sure that that was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to him. Maybe _the_ nicest.

Quite frankly, he'd never given much thought as to how the people around him would feel on the day that he inevitably didn't get back up. While he was always aware that his job was a dangerous one, he wasn't one to dwell on it. And what little he _had_ considered it, he assumed that people would miss the function he fulfilled - an excellent soldier, a top notch retrieval specialist, a skilled hitter - but not necessarily miss _him_ as a person.

But looking at Parker now, it was clear none of those things were on her mind.

Pulling her hand towards him, he placed it on his bare chest right over his heart before covering it with his non-casted hand, ignoring how his broken collarbone protested the movement.

"Feel that?" he asked her, waiting until she nodded before he continued. "Nice and strong. It's not stopping, and I'm not going anywhere. Okay?" He held her gaze until she nodded again, signaling that she understood what he was trying to tell her. "Now close your eyes, I'm not going to be able to fall asleep with you staring at me."

"So I can stay?"

"Just for tonight," he told her, shutting his eyes, an indication that she should do the same. "Tomorrow you go back to your own room."

Parker didn't reply, but he could feel her settling in against the pillow.

And as the pair fell asleep with their hands joined, resting over his heart, Eliot's last thought was, _It's just for one night._

* * *

A/N And there we have it! Until next time, feed the muse and let me know what you guys thought!


	10. Housebound and House Guests

A/N Welcome back everybody! I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave feedback so far on this story, you guys are the best and are really what keep me writing when I'm having bad days :D And of course as always I need to once again thank Alexandra926 for being the best ever...

* * *

Eliot woke up slowly, having slept longer and deeper than he had in longer than he could remember. He stretched as carefully as he could, but groaned when he still managed to pull at his bad ribs. Lazily rolling his head to the side he cracked his eyes open and confirmed what he already knew. Parker was already awake and gone, only rumpled blankets and an indented pillow indicating that she had been there at all.

He let his eyes fall shut again, taking a moment to indulge in the silence. It didn't last long however, as he soon heard the sound of ceramic clacking against itself, heading up the hallway in his direction.

"Oh good, you're up," Parker greeted as she opened the door with her elbow, since her hands were laden with bowls, coffee mugs, and silverware. "I made breakfast."

"You could have taken two trips," he pointed out as he sat up, torn between wanting to grab something before she dropped everything, but worried that he might disrupt what was clearly a precarious balancing act. Either way he was seriously concerned that he was going to end up having to steam clean the rug next to his bed.

Parker scoffed dismissively, as she carefully started unloading her haul onto the nightstand. "Why would I do that?"

"You made oatmeal," he stated the obvious when she handed him a bowl.

"I did," she confirmed, making sure his coffee was in his easy reach before taking her own breakfast around to the other side of the bed and settling in against the pillows.

"On the stove?" he asked, knowing he didn't have any of that microwavable instant stuff in his pantry. On first inspection, the oatmeal in the bowl looked fine. It had the correct consistency and everything. Then he gave it a sniff; it smelled fine too, and there wasn't any lingering burnt smell in the air either from prior batches gone wrong.

"Why so suspicious?" she asked, grabbing the remote and turning the TV onto cartoons before digging into her own breakfast. "It's not seasoned with rat poison."

"You don't cook," he reminded her. "Anything. Ever. You once set a Cup O' Noodles on fire."

"That microwave was stupid," she defended herself, waving her spoon in his direction. "I meant to set it for three minutes. You shouldn't even be able to set the timer for three hours. Who even cooks anything in the microwave for that long anyways?"

She wasn't wrong, but that wasn't the point. "You wandered away and completely forgot about it until the sprinkler system went off!"

Parker just shrugged. She couldn't deny that it had happened, but she'd clearly moved on with her life, and didn't see why Eliot was dwelling on something that had happened back when they were still in Los Angeles.

"You really shouldn't be so surprised that I can make oatmeal."

"And why is that?" he asked dubiously, since the aforementioned microwave incident was hardly the only reason he had banned her from his kitchen.

She looked at him like he was stupid, "Because it's just hot cereal. And you know cereal is my favorite. _Obviously_."

"It's- it's not the- Parker- not the same-" He sighed, and let it go.

He picked up the spoon and stirred it around a bit before taking a tentative bite. It was _far_ sweeter than he would make for himself, since he usually just tossed in some blueberries, chopped walnuts and a little bit of cinnamon, but it was definitely edible, so he would take that as a win.

"What did you put in it?" he asked curiously.

"Maple syrup and brown sugar," she told him. "Do you like it?"

He was about to tell her to maybe only use one sweetener next time, but when he looked over at her and saw she was waiting on his verdict with what was clearly hopeful anticipation, he couldn't find it in his heart to criticize.

"You did good, darlin'," he told her. The beaming grin that spread across her face made the fact that he felt like he was going to have to brush his teeth twice worth it.

The day passed as pleasantly as it could, considering the circumstances. Eliot still hated the mandatory downtime required from recovering from a major injury, but at least now it was tempered by the fact that he was recuperating in his own home and in his own bed, rather than the hospital he'd he'd been stuck in for what felt like forever, but was really only a little over a week.

He was tempted to start pushing his rehab, but he knew his body well enough to know when he could get away with that, and when he knew he had to take it easy or else delay his recovery even more. Unfortunately this time fell firmly into the latter category. He knew he probably still had a week or so of forced inactivity ahead of him. At least he'd have time to catch up on his reading and his Netflix queue. And, he thought, looking at the woman next to him, the company wasn't terrible.

As evening began to fall, Parker was occupied with watching some terrible horror movie that she was laughing along with like it was a comedy, while Eliot was absorbed in his book. When the doorbell rang, the hitter and thief both turned to look at each other to see if the other knew who could be at the door.

"Are we expecting someone?" Parker asked, genuinely wondering if she'd forgotten something.

"No," Eliot replied. "Did you order food for dinner?"

She shook her head. "Not yet."

They'd casually discussed it a bit earlier in the afternoon, but had never gotten around to making an actual decision on where to order delivery from. Sliding out from under the covers, Parker walked through the condo to go investigate who was at the front door. She checked the peephole first, knowing what Eliot would say if she didn't, but quickly unlocked the door when she saw who was on the other side.

"Hardison," she greeted, clearly surprised to see him. "What are you doing here?"

"Parker?" Hardison returned, his eyes wide, just as surprised by what he was seeing. "What are you _wearing_ , Mama?"

Parker looked down at herself, not seeing the problem. She was wearing what she always wore around the house. "Clothes?" she responded, like she wasn't sure if it was a trick question.

"Is that... is that Eliot's shirt?" Hardison couldn't help but ask.

"Is that Chinese food?" Parker asked, ignoring his question in favor of her own.

Hardison looked down at the plastic bags in his hand, full of white cardboard to-go containers like he'd forgotten they were there. "Oh, uh yeah."

"Cool, I'll let Eliot know you brought dinner," she said, before turning on a heel and heading down the hall. By the time she got back to the bedroom, Eliot was already sitting on the edge of the bed, struggling to put his knee brace back on, since he'd taken it off earlier to give his leg a break.

"Hardison?" Eliot asked, having heard his voice. He should've known that he and Parker wouldn't make it twenty-four hours before someone came to check up on them.

"Hardison," Parker confirmed, wordlessly dropping to her knees, so she could fasten the straps on his brace. She knew there would be no convincing him to stay in bed with their teammate there, so she didn't even bother to try.

Eliot was going to reply until movement in the doorway caught his eye. "Dammit, Hardison!" he exploded when he saw the hacker poking his head through the door. "You don't just walk into another man's bedroom! What's wrong with you?! Go wait in the living room!"

Parker shook her head as Hardison's sputtering excuses traveled back down the hall. "He brought dinner," she offered, as if that might keep Eliot from murdering their teammate with his thoughts. "Chinese."

"It better be from Mr. Chow's," was all Eliot said as Parker helped him shrug on a sweatshirt and settled his sling over his head. "And he better not have forgotten the crab ragoon again."

"Or the fortune cookies," she added. The whole crew knew to order extra _extra_ fortune cookies whenever Parker was involved.

Once he was set, Parker headed out to join Hardison, leaving Eliot to follow at his own slower pace.

Out in the living room, Hardison was occupied with trying to reconcile his expectations with reality. When he'd told Sophie and Nate that he'd take the first shift checking in on how Eliot and Parker were dealing with each other, he'd fully expected to find them sniping at each other from opposite ends of the the couch, needing him to swoop in to play mediator after a full day together without one of their teammates as a buffer. Or if not that, maybe Eliot would be in bed and Parker would be banished to the living room. And then there was the third option, which quite frankly he felt a little bad for even thinking it, which was that he had half-expected Parker to not be here at all.

What he had _not_ been expecting, was for Parker to answer the door dressed only in Eliot's shirt and then come to find that Eliot wasn't wearing a shirt at all. And never in a million years would he have guessed that they would have spent the day together in Eliot's bed. Because while he hadn't gotten a good look before he'd been chased out, the rumpled blankets and drinking glasses on both nightstands, combined with the fact that the living room had been quiet and dark until he'd flipped on some lights and turned on the TV; well, it made a pretty clear picture. If Hardison hadn't known for a fact that Eliot was as injured as he was, he might think that he was interrupting something else entirely.

By the time Eliot made it down the hall using the walls and strategically placed furniture for balance, Parker had already pulled plates and utensils out of the kitchen, thoughtfully grabbing a fork for Eliot to use instead of his usual chopsticks. Eliot was getting settled on the couch, while Hardison unpacked the takeout, when Parker re-emerged from the kitchen with three bottles of beer, the caps already popped off.

"So, how was your first day out of the hospital?" Hardison asked conversationally, loading up a plate for himself before taking a seat in the chair, since Parker was quick to claim the other end of the couch.

"Fine," Eliot said vaguely, turning the TV on to the game, before taking the plate that Parker had put together for him. "Thanks, darlin'."

"What'd y'all do?" Hardison continued to press.

"Nothing much," Parker shrugged, popping a potsticker into her mouth, while putting together a plate of her own.

"Sounds exciting," Hardison said dryly.

"Yup," Eliot agreed in the same tone.

"Why do I even try to have a normal conversation with you two? Like tryin' to squeeze blood from a damn stone," Hardison grumbled.

That piqued Parker's interest. "There are rocks that bleed?" She asked looking to Eliot for answers. "Can _you_ make rocks bleed?"

"No Parker, it's just an expression for something that's impossible," he explained, gesturing with his fork, wordlessly asking her for the sweet and sour.

"Oh," she said, visibly deflating in disappointment as she passed the sauce.

Hardison carried most of the conversation as they ate, filling them in on the new identities he was building for them and how he wanted to improve the earbuds while they had some downtime. But eventually any talk was centered mainly around the game they were watching. At least until Parker reached over and tugged the blanket that lived draped over the back of the couch, out from behind Eliot.

"Cold?" Eliot asked leaning forward slightly, so she could grab the blanket that he considered hers, more easily.

"Little bit," she shrugged, wrapping the throw around her shoulders.

"You know what would help with that?" he asked, a smirk spreading across his face.

"Sparky..." Parker said warningly, already knowing what was coming.

" _Pants_."

Parker threw a fortune cookie from the pile on the coffee table at Eliot, the hitter catching it easily even with the cast on his arm.

Having no idea that the exchange he'd just witnessed was actually something of a running joke between the pair, Hardison interjected. "I can come by again tomorrow if you want to go home to pick up some of your own stuff, Parker," he offered.

Eliot and Parker both turned to look at Hardison with inscrutable expressions, and the hacker couldn't help but feel like he'd just walked into the middle of something, despite the fact that he'd been sitting there the whole time.

"Why would I do that?" she asked.

"So you could wear your own clothes and not Eliot's…" Hardison said, trailing off, trying not to let the blank expression on Parker's face dissuade him. "...since he might not like that."

Parker just blinked at Hardison until Eliot handed her the cookie she'd thrown at him and she was distracted by cracking it open and eating it. When Hardison looked to Eliot for some kind of backup or possibly just validation, the hitter just rolled his eyes and shook his head, before turning his attention back to the game. He was not about to explain Parker's preferred clothing choices, or that there was no need for her to go to her place since over half of her wardrobe already lived in the guest room closet and dresser.

As the game dragged on, Parker sank down on the couch, until she was laying down, using the armrest as a pillow. Despite her full night of sleep the day before, she was still bouncing back from over a week of sleep deprivation and she was currently feeling it. However, if anyone had asked, she would have insisted that she wasn't sleepy, she was just getting comfortable.

But that didn't mean that Eliot didn't see exactly what was happening on the couch next to him. He noticed when Parker's blinks started getting longer and longer as she fought to stay awake. And he was definitely aware of the way she startled almost infinitesimally, every time Hardison yelled at the TV. When her eyes drifted shut for the third time in as many minutes, Eliot reached out and ran his knuckle up the sole of the foot poking out from underneath the blanket she had wrapped herself up in. Her foot swiftly retreated to the safety of the blanket and her eyes popped open to glare at him.

"Why don't you go on to bed, darlin'," he suggested softly, knowing that she would have conked out on the couch already if Hardison wasn't over. He could see the warring expression on her face and saw she was about two seconds from denying she was tired at all. "You're not going to miss anything. The game is almost over, then Hardison is going to go home, and I'm going to go to bed myself."

Parker clearly considered this for a moment before conceding, rolling from the couch, stretching, and heading off down the hallway dragging the blanket behind her, without so much as a goodbye or goodnight to the two men she left behind.

Hardison waited until he heard a door open, then close, before speaking. "So how are things man, _really_?"

Eliot sighed mentally as he drained the last of his beer. "Things are fine," he said, wondering the quickest way out of this heart-to-heart that Hardison seemed intent on having.

"And everything is okay with Parker here?" the hacker asked.

"Of course it's okay with Parker here," Eliot retorted irritably, not looking away from the TV. "Did we not look okay to you?"

"Nah," Hardison backtracked. "You know I got nothing but mad love for Parker, but I know that she can also be… a lot, after a while. I meant what I said earlier, I can come back tomorrow and hang out for awhile if you, ya know, need a break from her."

Eliot shot the other man a disgruntled look. "You know what my favorite part of having Parker here is?" he asked, before continuing without waiting for an answer "It's that she's not constantly asking how I am!"

Hardison held up his hands in surrender, reading the hitter's mood correctly. "Alright man, just remember the offer stands."

They watched the end of the game in silence, and as the post-game analysis began, Hardison made quick work of putting up the leftovers and dropping the dirty dishes in the sink. Eliot followed Hardison to the door, and after the two men said their goodnights, locked the door behind him.

Eliot leaned against the closed door for a moment, just listening to Hardison's footsteps heading for the elevator and let himself relax, grateful that he was gone. It wasn't that he didn't like Hardison. He did. And under normal circumstances, take-out, beer, and Thursday Night Football would be a pretty good evening in his book. But he was exhausted, as annoying as he found that since he'd done pretty much nothing all day, and he was in more pain than he would have liked to admit. He was very much looking forward to going back to bed.

Limping back to his bedroom, he paused in the hallway when he realized that the door to the guest room was open and the bed was clearly empty. Which could only mean…

"Dammit, Parker," he sighed softly, when he walked into his bedroom and immediately spotted the glint of blonde hair reflecting the moonlight that was pouring through the open curtains. This was not what he'd meant when he'd told Parker to go to bed.

He'd meant it when he told her that the night before was a one time only deal.

Crossing over to the bed, he had every intention of waking her up and sending her back to her own room. But then, with his arm extended to shake her awake, he paused. She looked so peaceful swallowed up by his down comforter, one hand curled under her chin, eyelashes impossibly long against her pale cheeks. He just didn't have the heart to wake her.

With another sigh, he simply got ready for bed as quietly as he could as to not disturb the sleeping thief, and then crawled beneath the covers next to her.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Eliot woke up to a gentle pressure on the middle of his chest. Cracking his eyes open, he saw that sometime in the night Parker had inched closer and placed her hand over his heart while he was sleeping. He legitimately didn't know if he should be touched that she cared so much that she needed to reassure herself that he was okay, or offended that she was so concerned he was going to just expire in the middle of the night.

He needed to get up and use the bathroom, but he knew the second he moved, she would wake up. Not wanting to disturb her just quite yet, he decided that he could wait and closed his eyes, letting Parker's soft rhythmic breathing lull him into a light doze. The peaceful moment didn't last long however, when the ringing of the doorbell had Parker out of bed and on her feet before the chiming had even stopped.

She looked around the room with wild eyes for a moment while she tried to process why she had gone from a dead sleep, to alert and awake in 0.02 seconds. It was a survival skill that Eliot knew from experience was at odds with the way she woke up naturally. On a normal morning where she was able to wake up on her own, he knew it usually took about twenty minutes and a cup of coffee, before she was capable of, or willing to carry on a coherent conversation.

"Doorbell," was all she said before leaving the room to go see who it was.

Looking through the peephole, Parker felt the adrenaline from her wake up call start to drain from her body when she saw who it was. Pulling the door open, she didn't bother with any kind of greeting other than reaching out to take one of the coffees out of the tray Sophie was carrying, only then opening the door wide enough to let the other woman in.

"Good morning, Parker," Sophie greeted. "I hope I didn't wake you," she added, taking in the younger woman's obviously sleep-mussed hair and tired eyes, dressed in what could only be one of Eliot's quintessential plaid shirts.

"Well, you did," Parker said bluntly, not bothering to hide her yawn as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "I'll go tell Eliot that you're here."

"No need, darlin'," Eliot said, from where he was working his way down the hall. "I'm right here. But what are you doing here so early, Sophie?"

"I thought I'd bring you two breakfast," Sophie explained cheerfully, sweeping into the room, dropping the bag of assorted pastries onto the dining room table.

"At seven in the morning?" Eliot asked doubtfully, sitting carefully in a chair, holding his left arm close to his chest since he hadn't bothered putting his sling on. While he was always awake at this time, and usually for awhile at this point, he knew for a fact that unless they had to be up for a job, Sophie didn't like to be awake before nine. He didn't believe for a moment that she didn't have ulterior motives.

"I'm just getting a jump start on the day," Sophie said lightly, watching Parker unpack breakfast for a moment before turning to Eliot. "Restroom?" she asked simply.

"Second door on the left," Eliot informed her distractedly, pointing down the hall, preoccupied with trying to stop Parker from licking every pastry to decide which one she wanted.

Walking down the hallway, Sophie glanced over her shoulder, before pausing to peek into the guest bedroom, immediately spotting the obviously unslept in bed. Clasping a hand over her mouth in surprise, she quickly ducked into the bathroom across the hall, leaning against the shut door. Hardison had come back to Nate's loft the night before full of only half-comprehensible statements about clothes and bed sharing. Sophie was sure the hacker was reading into things that weren't there, and over exaggerating as he was prone to do. So _of course_ she'd had to come over and investigate for herself. What she _hadn't_ expected was for Hardison to be so completely right.

Realizing she'd been in the bathroom long enough, she leaned over to flush the toilet and then let the water in the sink run for a moment while she checked her lipstick, before heading back out to the main room.

"Alright, well I'll leave you two to it," Sophie announced, picking up her purse which she'd left on the table.

"You're leaving already?" Eliot asked surprised, but not necessarily disappointed. It was just that he had been sure he was going to have the grifter hanging around all morning.

"I'm afraid so, I have things to do, people to see today," she said breezily. She needed to talk to Nate, she couldn't have been the only one to miss this development, whatever it was.

"But you brought breakfast," Parker said, equally confused. "And you didn't eat any."

"I brought it for you," Sophie replied. "Enjoy!" she called behind her as she swept out of the condo, the door clicking shut behind her.

"That was weird, right?" Parker asked after a few moments of them eating in silence. "I mean I know I'm not good at these sorts of things, but..." she looked to Eliot for confirmation.

"Yeah, that was definitely weird," he assured her.

"What got into her?" Parker wondered, her head cocked to the side as she turned back to the front door, like she expected Sophie to come bursting back through it at any minute.

Eliot could only imagine. "Don't know," he said honestly. "But I don't really care. I'm gonna go take a shower."

After a nice long steam, Eliot couldn't even say he was surprised when he came out of the bathroom and found Parker sitting on his bed folded practically in half while she painted her toenails. What did give him pause was the look on her face. She was trying to look like she was focused on what she was doing, but underneath that was the same face she made when she felt like she was getting away with something. It was usually something innocuous, like purposely riling Hardison up, by giving some controversial opinion about one of those stupid sci-fi shows he enjoyed so much. But the key word there was _usually_ , so he still wanted to know what she'd gotten up to while he had been otherwise distracted.

"What did you do?" he asked plainly.

"What do you mean?" she asked, glancing up from her toes, the epitome of innocence written all over her face.

He didn't believe it for a second. "While I was in the shower, what did you do?"

"Nothing," she proclaimed, screwing the top back onto the bright purple polish she was using. "Other than cleaning up the dishes from breakfast and from yesterday."

" _And?_ " he continued, leadingly.

" _And_ I used the dishwasher, because you weren't there to stop me," Parker admitted, sticking her tongue out at him.

Eliot rolled his eyes. That wasn't nearly as bad as he had feared. In fact, he was mildly amused at her obstinance, until a realization settled over him.

"Parker," he said with a carefully measured calm. "Please tell me you didn't just use the regular dish soap that is under the sink?"

"It's dish soap, right?" she replied. "It's made to clean dishes."

"You can't use _sink_ dish soap in the _dishwasher_ ," he ground out. "You have to use dishwasher detergent."

"Does it really matter?"

"Dammit Parker, it matters!" he exclaimed, losing his cool, imagining his kitchen at that very moment, completely filled with suds. "It matters a lot!"

Parker burst into hysterical laughter, tipping sideways onto the bed, holding her stomach with both arms. "Oh, your face!" she giggled. "I know it's a different soap," she assured him, once she started to settle. "Trust me, I learned that lesson the hard way when I was nine. I spent enough time in the closet after that mistake to never make it again."

"The closet?" Eliot asked, not sure if he really wanted to know.

"Yeah, and it was a holiday weekend, so I was stuck in there for three days before he had to let me out to go to school," she explained casually, as if she wasn't revealing something extremely appalling. "But it was a walk-in so it was pretty roomy, and I'd learned to keep a few boxes of cereal hidden on the top shelf behind the stack of old Playboys, so it actually wasn't too bad of a weekend."

"Jesus Christ, Parker," Eliot exhaled, horrified.

"Don't worry," she continued on like it was nothing, "I went downstairs to borrow some soap from Miss Angelika and Madame Du Pompadour."

Eliot had to stop and wonder if he'd just had a small stroke, because _what_? "You borrowed soap from Louis XV's mistress?" he asked, bewildered.

Parker let out another barking laugh. "No, Miss Angelika. The lady who lives in 4B."

Eliot tried to remember which of his neighbors Parker was talking about. He had made it a point to know everyone who lived in the building on sight, even if he had also made efforts to not actually interact with any of them. "You mean the old lady with the blue hair and the pink poodle?"

Parker nodded with a wide grin. "Uh huh!"

"So Madame Du Pompadour is-"

"The poodle."

"Riiiiiight," Eliot drawled slowly. "And _how_ do you know her well enough to borrow soap?" he couldn't stop himself from asking.

"I was in the vents one time and I saw her struggling to take her trash out to the chute, so I helped her," she said with a shrug. "She has arthritis, so it's hard for her to carry the bags. So now I go over once a week to take out her trash, and then we have candy cane tea and ginger snaps while she tells me stories."

Eliot blinked at her once, and then again. He had so many questions that he didn't even know where to start. "Every week? How long has this been going on? What the hell is candy cane tea?"

"Usually on Tuesdays, unless we're out of town for work. I guess it's been five or six months now. Peppermint tea with a mini candy cane in it," she answered each question in turn.

"It's not even October," he pointed out.

"So?" she responded. "There's never a bad time of year for candy canes."

"I had no idea," Eliot admitted frankly. He'd truly had no clue Parker was out making friends with his elderly neighbor.

Parker just shrugged, not seeing how that was a concern of hers. "I like her. She says she doesn't think I'm weird. She says I just have a unique and refreshing perspective of the world, and that people who can't see that, aren't worth my time," Parker recited, with a decisive nod.

"She's right," Eliot agreed, even if he would always think Parker was weird. But he had learned over the years, that for the most part, it was a weird that suited her, and he wouldn't change her for the world.

"She even likes that I don't use the door," she continued, "because her knees make it hard for her to get up to answer it."

That right there, though. The fact that she'd just confessed to breaking into his neighbor's home on a weekly basis, even if said neighbor apparently didn't mind. That was the stuff that gave him a headache.

"She has the best stories too. Did you know she was a burlesque performer in New York City during World War II?" she continued excitedly. "She was a fan dancer. She'd be naked on stage in front of all those soldiers on leave, with nothing but two big fans made of ostrich feathers."

"Is that right..." he drawled, not sure how else to respond to that information. Not that he was about to admit it to Parker, but he'd actually seen a fan dancer perform before. It was far more alluring than one would expect it to be.

"Yeah," she nodded. "She still has them. They're hanging up on her wall. Well, when she's not teaching me how to use them."

Eliot's brain stuttered. "Wait, what?"

"I'm actually getting pretty good at it," Parker said. "Miss Angelika says I'm a natural."

Eliot chuckled, shaking his head to himself as he processed that information. "You, darlin', are a _constant_ surprise."

"In a good way or a bad way?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"Depends," he said honestly. "But this time I mean it in a good way. It's usually a good way," he assured her, at least ever since he'd stopped finding her quirks annoying and started finding them charming. "You certainly keep me on my toes."

"I'll have to give you a show sometime," she offered casually, before getting up to go put her nail polish away.

Eliot choked on thin air at the very thought.

Yup, a _constant surprise_.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

"God dammit!" Eliot exclaimed, throwing his head back on the couch and looking up at the ceiling when the doorbell rang yet again. He'd finally found a comfortable position where none of his assorted injuries hurt too. "What now?!"

Setting down the beer he was drinking, he carefully levered himself up off the couch before slowly making his way to the door, the person on the other side of it getting impatient and ringing the bell again before he was halfway there.

"I'm coming, hold your fucking horses," he grumbled as he unlocked the door to find Nate standing on his threshold. He supposed he should have expected this, since he was the only one who hadn't shown up yet.

"Really, Nate?" he asked, unimpressed, stepping back to let the mastermind in. "You too?" After all, Nate had been the only one to support his decision to have Parker stay with him while he recuperated.

Nate held his hands up in front of him placatingly. "Sophie insisted," he admitted with a shrug. "But I brought Cuban sandwiches."

"Whatever," Eliot sighed, gingerly heading back towards the couch.

"What are you doing answering the door anyways?" Nate asked, as he watch Eliot replace the ice pack he'd been using on his knee before the doorbell rang. "Where's Parker?"

"She's up on the roof," Eliot said, making a vague gesture to the stairs behind him. It had been too long since he'd been up there to check on the garden and greenhouse and while the watering was on an automated system, he'd asked her to make sure it wasn't being completely overrun with weeds in his absence. "I don't know why you all keep expecting to find out that she's taken off," he added irritably, offended on her behalf.

"I didn't," Nate replied simply. "That's why I was surprised she didn't answer the door."

"Really?" Eliot couldn't stop himself from asking.

"Yeah, unless it involves emotions, which even that she's getting better with, Parker excels at anything she decides she wants to excel at. She just generally doesn't choose to care about most things," Nate said conversationally, as he unpacked the take-out bags. "I knew she wouldn't let you down."

"Huh." Was all Eliot said, the hitter trying not to think too hard about the deeper ramifications of his boss's statement.

"Where do you keep your plates?" Nate asked, never having spent any extended time in Eliot's home.

"Cupboard to the left of the fridge," Eliot answered, picking up the earbud that Parker had left out for him in case he needed anything while she was upstairs. As he slipped it into his ear, he was surprised that he was coming into a conversation mid-sentence.

"You guys have to keep growing until you look like a big brain so Eliot can turn you into something yummy for me to eat. He thinks I don't know that he hides you in mashed potatoes, but we don't have to tell him that. It makes him feel better to sneak extra vegetables into my dinner, so that can just be our little secret."

A small smile passed over Eliot's lips as he listened to Parker share secrets with his cauliflower. He should have known he couldn't pull one over on the sneakiest person he knew, but since she obviously didn't have a problem with it, he would keep doing it and let her think the plants had kept her confidence.

"Well hello, tomatoes, you guys are looking nice and ripe this afternoon," Parker said, clearly moving down the rows. "We'll have to ask Eliot if I should pick you guys."

"If you think they're ready, go ahead and pick them," Eliot said, letting her know he was now on the comms.

"Do you want me to just bring one down, so you can double-check?" she asked.

"No, I trust you," he replied. "I've shown you before how to tell which ones are ready to pick. And once you're done, come back down. Nate is here and he brought sandwiches."

It didn't take long for Parker to come skipping down the stairs, a wicker basket full of tomatoes, snap peas, and a bunch of spinach, hanging from her elbow.

Nate's steps actually faltered when he looked up and saw Parker hop off the last stair. "What are you _wearing_?"

"It's my gardening outfit," Parker explained excitedly, twirling on her toes to show off her overalls over a plaid shirt, her green striped rubber boots, and of course, her big floppy straw hat, covering her hair which she had in two braids. "Do you like it?"

"It's very…" Nate looked for the right word, "apropos."

Parker beamed and Eliot smirked. The straw hat was one of the uglier things Eliot had ever seen, but Parker had seen it that day he took her to the nursery and she had immediately decided that she _had_ to have it. And since he had just told her she needed a sunhat next time to keep her from burning again, he couldn't really tell her no. Plus, it made her so happy, and she looked so ridiculous in it every time she wore it that it always made him smile, so he considered it a win-win.

"So you garden now," Nate said, looking amused. "And here I was, thinking that you didn't _get_ plants." He'd been drunk almost all the time back then, but he was pretty sure there had been long, drawn-out debates on the merits of keeping potted plants in the office, back when they had actual offices in Los Angeles instead of just working out of his living room.

"No, I don't get _flowers_ ," she corrected. "Especially once they're cut. Then they're just the amputees of the plant world."

Nate laughed, wondering if she'd ever shared this theory with Sophie, already imagining the grifter's response.

"Eliot showed me that there are plants with a purpose," Parker continued. "So that I get. And I like digging in the dirt," she added, waving her grubby hands in Nate's face. "I like the way it feels on my fingers."

"Parker, darlin', why don't you go wash up for lunch," Eliot interjected, saving the mastermind from Parker's soil-covered fingers. "You've got dirt on your face too," he added reaching out to brush a bit of dirt off her nose.

"Okay," she said agreeably, before disappearing down the hall.

"Where on earth did she get that hat?" Nate asked, after the men watched her leave the room.

"It's Parker," Eliot responded, leaving it at that. He had no desire to explain the actual story so it was best just to let Nate fill in the blanks however she wanted. "I blame Sophie," he added.

"I have no doubts that Sophie would be absolutely horrified to hear that, once she's seen that hat."

"Well, Sophie's the one that taught her that the right outfit does half the work for you on the grift," Eliot pointed out. "Now Parker thinks that that applies to every situation in life, and insists that she needs the right get-up whenever she tries something even remotely out of her comfort zone."

Nate couldn't deny the truth in Eliot's words and chose not to say anything. Instead, he continued to surreptitiously watch the pair as Parker vaulted over the back of the couch, now minus the hat and boots. Eliot didn't even blink as she landed lightly at his side, managing to not jostle him at all.

When Parker started to wordlessly deconstruct her lunch, and Eliot unthinkingly lifted the top half of his sandwich to accept the pickles that Parker was picking out of her sandwich to drop onto his, Nate really began to understand what Sophie had been going on about at length after her visit the day before. The mastermind stayed quiet as he ate his own lunch, still observing the way they playfully sniped at each other as Parker reported the status of Eliot's much beloved garden. It was becoming clear that she had more experience with it than Nate ever would have guessed.

Nate had been vaguely aware of the shifting dynamic in his hitter and his thief's relationship over the past few months, but he hadn't given it much thought, beyond the fact that the team was running smoother than ever. But seeing them together, outside of the work setting in what was clearly a comfort zone for both of them, was eye-opening. Suddenly, puzzle pieces that he'd dismissed as outliers started slotting into place.

"Is there anything you two need while I'm here?" Nate asked, as they were all finishing up their meal, and he stood to take his leave.

Parker and Eliot exchanged a look that encompassed an entire conversation.

"No, I think we're good," Eliot answered.

"Alright, feel free to give someone a call if you change your mind." Nate paused for just a moment before continuing. "I can't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do about making the others give you two some space."

"Uh, thanks Nate," Eliot responded. It wasn't that he was against some peace and quiet from his well meaning teammates since that was exactly what he wanted, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Nate meant something... more, somehow, with his offer.

When Parker returned from walking Nate out, taking a detour through the kitchen to retrieve a carton of ice cream and two spoons, he couldn't help but comment on it.

"Is it just me, or has everyone been acting really odd?" he asked, taking one of the spoons.

Parker nodded her agreement, as she dug into the pint of mint chocolate chip. "And they all think _I'm_ the weird one."

* * *

A/N Alrighty, there we have it! The longest chapter yet! I sincerely hope you enjoyed it, so please let me know what you guys thought!


	11. Cookies and Cookouts

A/N Welp it's that time of the week again, welcome back everyone! As always I need to thank Alexandra926 for all her invaluable help... and other than that I don't have much to say other than I hope you all enjoy!

* * *

"Hey Sparky, what were those funny colored chocolate-chip cookies you made that one time?" Parker asked randomly, while she focused on the intricate designs she was doodling on Eliot's black cast with a silver Sharpie. They were spending yet another morning lounging around in his bed watching Netflix, a little over a week after his release from the hospital.

Eliot had to think for a moment, while he twisted his wrist a little to give her better access to the section she was drawing on. He hadn't known what to think when she'd produced the marker a few days ago and asked if she could decorate his cast. His first instinct had been to tell her no, but she'd looked so hopeful that he'd quickly given in. She'd been working on it a little bit at a time ever since.

"You mean the red velvet ones?" he asked, when he finally remembered which ones she was talking about.

"Yeah, those were really good," she nodded. "I want those right now."

"Sorry, darlin', I don't think I'm really in any shape to be baking anything right now."

"Huh?" Parker asked, looking up from his arm in her lap. "Oh, I know. I wasn't asking, I was just saying," she said with a small understanding smile, before turning her full attention back to the mandala-inspired design that she was working on, on the inside of his wrist.

Despite the fact she gave no indication of disappointment, Eliot still couldn't help feeling like he was letting her down somehow. It was hardly the first time she had made a such a… well a 'request' was putting it nicely. But four times out of five, he usually indulged her if he wasn't otherwise occupied. Despite himself, he found himself running through the ingredients in his pantry, wondering if he even had all the fixings for the cookies she currently wanted. He did, but there was one big problem. It was hard to do any sort of baking without at least _one_ good arm.

"I could teach you how to make them, if you wanted," he found himself offering, before he even realized what he was doing.

Parker's head snapped up in surprise. "What, really?" she asked, legitimately shocked.

Eliot's kitchen was his own private domain, and she was well aware how little he liked to share it. Sure she'd been in there doing some nominal cooking since he'd been hurt, but that was simply out of necessity. To actually offer to teach her how to make something, that was a whole nother level.

"Yeah, sure," he said, feeling more confident about his offer. It was a relatively easy recipe. Mainly just measuring and mixing, and he'd be watching her every step of the way. And frankly, he was getting a little stir-crazy after so many days of doing nothing but sitting around watching TV. "But you have to do _exactly_ what I say. I mean it," he warned firmly.

"I promise!" she said, nearly vibrating with excitement, jumping off the bed and dashing down the hall to the kitchen.

By the time Eliot caught up with her, following at a much slower pace, she was already wearing an apron, had one of his bandanas tied around her head, and was brandishing a whisk like it was a weapon. He'd rather launch a one man incursion into Pyongyang than admit it, but damn did she look adorable.

"Why?" was all he asked, pointing to his own forehead.

"To help me cook better," was her response, as if that explained everything.

Eliot blinked, opened his mouth to respond, and then shut it again with an amused shake of his head, deciding to let it go without comment. He knew when to pick his battles and that one was not even close to worth it. Instead he simply reached over to straighten out the bandana so it sat evenly on her forehead, unable to hold back his grin at the picture she made.

"So what do I do first?" she asked eagerly, returning his smile. "I've never made cookies before."

Memories of standing on a chair in the kitchen of his childhood home, helping his mother make cookies for the church bake sale flashed through Eliot's mind. His grin faded, as he once again felt a rolling in his gut at the childhood Parker had been robbed of.

"First, put the whisk down. Then, roll up your sleeves and wash your hands," he told her as he carefully slid, cautious of aggravating his many injuries, onto the barstool that he'd started thinking of as hers, since it was where she usually sat while she watched him make dinner. "Then, you're going to preheat the oven."

All in all, their experiment in baking went better than Eliot had expected. Parker was clearly making an effort to listen and follow his directions, and they only had a few small hiccups along the way.

The first was when she learned the importance of making sure the mixer was stopped completely before pulling it out of the batter. Eliot couldn't help but laugh, holding onto his tender ribs, at the surprised look on Parker's now flour-covered face when half-mixed batter started flying everywhere. He wasn't even annoyed at the mess it made, since everyone made that mistake at least once.

The second was when Eliot had to convince her that yes, while she'd been burned in the past by trying a swig of straight vanilla extract, a few tablespoons mixed into an entire bowl of batter would only improve the mixture.

The third was when she took an experimental sniff of the beetroot powder Eliot used to dye the cookie dough red, since he didn't believe in artificial food colorings. She accidently ended up inhaling some and sneezed right into the jar, spreading a fine red mist all over herself, the kitchen counter, and the floor. Parker was distraught, sure she had ruined the cookies, but after a long explanation about dutch chocolate and anthocyanins in cocoa, Eliot assured her these days the red was just for show and that they'd taste the same, no matter what color the final cookies turned out.

"Do you want to lick the spoon?" Parker offered, carefully rolling dough into perfectly round balls between her palms. There was already one batch of cookies in the oven, and she was working on the second.

"That's okay, darlin'," Eliot told her.

"But you always let me lick the spoon," she pointed out, knowing that it was her reward for helping. Which of course in Eliot speak meant waiting patiently for whatever it was he baking, keeping her fingers out of the batter until it was done, and generally just not getting in the way.

"The last thing I need right now, on top of everything else, is salmonella," he replied wryly.

Parker's head quirked to the side, "I've never gotten sick."

"Yeah, but I've also seen you sit and eat an entire tube of raw cookie dough straight from the package in one sitting," he retorted, shuddering at the very thought. He was convinced her stomach had to be ironclad. "I don't even try to understand how you're able to eat the atrocious things you do anymore."

Parker grinned and opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by the doorbell before she could. The hitter and the thief shared a look of mutual exasperation. Despite Nate's assurances that he would try to keep them away, it seemed he'd only managed to keep their surprise visitors down to every couple days or so, instead of every day. At this point, even Parker was starting to understand why people had always told her that you were supposed to call before showing up at someone's house.

"Who do you think it is, today?" Parker asked, picking up a towel to wipe her sticky hands on, on the way to answer the door.

"It's been a few days since we've seen Hardison," Eliot guessed.

Parker unlocked and opened the door to find all three of their teammates standing on the other side of the threshold, Hardison and Nate both laden down with grocery bags.

"You were a third right!" Parker shouted over her shoulder, in lieu of any real greeting, before spinning on her bare toes and heading back towards the kitchen leaving the others to let themselves in and close the door behind them.

"It smells like all _kinds_ of delicious in here!" Hardison exclaimed, a hint of surprise in his tone, as the trio followed Parker further into the condo and towards the smell of baked goods.

"I'm making red velvet white-chocolate chip cookies!" Parker announced brightly as she took up her station to finish rolling out the last of the dough.

" _Parker_ is making cookies?" Sophie asked, cautiously peering into the kitchen, which was admittedly more than a bit of a mess.

"Yes, and she's doing a great job," Eliot said quickly, perhaps a bit more defensively than was strictly necessary. But the beaming smile Parker sent his way, made the speculative look Nate had developed worth it.

"Good work, Parker," the mastermind praised, as he worked on getting the perishables into the fridge.

"Hey Mama," Hardison said, looking over Parker's shoulder as he set the bags he was carrying down on one of the few counters that wasn't currently covered in either batter, ingredients, or dirty utensils, "if they're _red_ velvet cookies why aren't they-"

" _ **Hardison!**_ " Eliot barked, his tone practically daring him to finish his sentence. When the hacker looked up and saw the hitter's expression, he shut his mouth with an audible click of his teeth. "What's with all the groceries?" Eliot asked, changing the subject.

The timer on the oven went off and Parker quickly donned oven mitts and pulled the first batch of cookies out and replaced them with the batch she had just finished preparing, even remembering to reset the timer like an old pro.

"Oh, well we thought you might be getting tired of takeout," Sophie explained breezily, easily going along with the topic change, having noticed the slight tightening around Parker's eyes at Hardison's almost question. "And while none of us can cook like you do, Nate has assured me that he is capable of manning a barbecue without subjecting us all to food poisoning, and Hardison jumped right on board. I don't know what it is about you men and cooking over an open fire," she waved a dismissive hand. "Anyways, we thought we'd have a bit of a cookout, since there won't be too many more nice days before winter starts to set in. And then, we can have some of Parker's lovely cookies for dessert."

Parker looked at her team speculatively, clearly deciding if she wanted to share her creations or not. After a moment, she nodded and smiled, agreeing to Sophie's plan. She started transferring the cookies from the baking sheet to the cooling rack, only pausing to rap Hardison over the knuckles with the metal spatula when he tried to snag a cookie when he thought she wasn't looking.

"Sophie said those are for dessert," she informed the pouting hacker primly, much to everyone else's amusement.

"You really gotta work on your lifts," Nate teased, clapping the younger man on the shoulder.

"My lifts are fine," Hardison said defensively, cradling his stinging hand to his chest. "My lifts are _pro_. Tryin' to hold me to Parker standards ain't fair. No one is at Parker levels, that's why she's Parker. You know that, but you all still judging. None of y'all seem to appreciate the talent that these hands possess-"

Knowing that this could go on for awhile, Eliot shook his head with an amused quirk of his lips, and tuned the hacker out so that he could turn his attention back to Parker. "Why don't you go take a shower and wash up before lunch gets started," he suggested, knowing that nothing except copious amounts of shampoo was going to get that floury mess out of her hair.

"But I have cookies in the oven," she pointed out, concerned.

"We'll watch them for you, dear," Sophie offered. "I'll get them out of the oven for you."

Parker frowned, still clearly unconvinced.

"I promise I won't let them burn," Eliot assured her.

"Fiiiiiiine," Parker sighed, untying the apron from behind her back and lifting it over her head.

"And how about you put on some pants when you get out of the shower?" he suggested lowly, in that tone he had that said it wasn't really a suggestion.

"What? Why?" she asked. "I'm not planning on doing any of the things," she said, referring to the list they had negotiated over the past few months of activities that required pants.

"Because... we have guests." Eliot didn't think that excuse would fly, but he tried it anyways.

Parker's nose scrunched up, "Sophie, Nate, and Hardison don't count as guests. They're family."

"Yeah man, we're family," Hardison interjected, having finished his rant about his pickpocketing skills in time to clue into their conversation.

"They don't live here. They're guests," Eliot insisted, before trying another tactic. "You're making Hardison twitchy. Put some pants on and put the man out of his misery."

"Me? Twitchy?" Hardison scoffed, pulling a bottle of orange soda out of one of the grocery bags. "That's defamation of character. I'm not twitchy. _You're_ twitchy."

Eliot shot Hardison a look, daring him to deny that fact that everyone, except perhaps the woman in question, could see the way his eyes kept darting down to Parker's bare legs before he remembered himself and forced himself to look anywhere _but_ at Parker's legs, before starting the whole process over again.

"I don't see what the big deal is," Parker said with a pout. "I'm wearing shorts underneath like I'm supposed to," she added, lifting the hem of the shirt to prove that she was, in fact, wearing a pair of Eliot's boxers rolled up at the waist so they would stay on. The result of yet another compromise the pair had made a few months back. "Besides, I wear dresses shorter than this all the time for cons, and those are usually too tight for me to wear _anything_ underneath."

A noise that could only be described as a squeak issued from Hardison's general direction, but when Eliot glanced his way he saw he was currently preoccupied with chugging soda straight from the two-liter bottle.

"See? Twitchy. And for Christ's sake, Hardison, there are glasses in the cupboard behind you." Eliot had one more card to play. "You're gonna need pants anyways, if you're gonna go up on the roof to show Nate how to get the grill started. You know there's a trick to it and I can't do the stairs yet."

Parker looked at Eliot dubiously through narrow eyes, pretty sure that she was being conned right now. After all, Nate was their mastermind; he should be able to work a grill. But then again, Eliot wasn't lying when he'd said that the grill was tricky to light. She'd even seen the hitter struggle with it a time or two and he knew exactly how to finagle it.

"Fine," she finally relented, picking up a cookie and eating half of it in one defiant bite.

"Hey, I thought those were for dessert," Hardison said, his knuckles still smarting.

"I made them. I'm allowed," she replied easily, picking up another cookie and sliding it across the counter to Eliot.

"Then why does he get one and I don't?" the hacker griped.

"Because he said no to the spoon."

"What does that even mean?" Hardison asked, bewildered. He turned to Sophie, "Do you know what that means. Is that code for something?"

Eliot took a smug bite of the cookie Parker handed him. "Couldn't have made 'em better myself, darlin'," he praised, making her smile.

She handed the spatula over to Eliot, who grasped it as best he could with his casted hand. When he gave her a questioning look, wondering why she was giving it to him, she simply pointed at her eyes with two fingers and then jabbed them in Hardison's direction. He couldn't hold back the chuckle when he realized she was giving him a weapon, and a direct order to stand watch over her cookies.

"I'll guard them with my life," he told her solemnly, though his eyes were sparkling with amusement.

"See that you do," she replied in much the same tone, before she practically danced down the hall towards the bathroom.

The four remaining members of the team just watched her go, until she disappeared out of sight.

Nate, who had been mostly silent since arriving, was the first to break the silence. "So, Parker needs to show me how to start the grill."

It was phrased as a neutral statement, but Eliot could hear the underlying curiosity loud and clear. He groaned internally, but didn't let it show. To be fair, he had been half-expecting this line of questioning eventually. With everyone all up in his personal space lately, he knew that Parker's familiarity with his home was going to pique interest and come back to bite him in the ass. Although he'd honestly been expecting it to come from Sophie or even Hardison, not Nate.

"Ever since we moved to Boston, Parker's been showing up from time to time looking to be fed. Like she's a stray cat or something," he said with a shrug, underplaying the situation. "I like to barbeque when the weather is nice. So she's seen me start the grill before, and she's paid attention to how to do it because that girl has a disquieting fascination with fire."

"She's very... comfortable here," Sophie observed, as she started cleaning up the mess that Hurricane Parker had left behind, wordlessly prodding Nate into doing the same.

"Parker is comfortable wherever Parker decides she wants to be comfortable," Eliot said blandly, practically daring them to deny that it was true.

"But still, she must be over here quite a bit," Sophie continued to push.

"It's not like I've ever _invited_ her. I just can't stop her from breaking in once or twice a week," he said with a shrug of his good shoulder, using all the techniques that Sophie herself had taught him about lying, mainly that the best lies were based in truths; just the truths that you wanted to reveal.

"Once or twice _a week_?" Hardison repeated, his eyes widening.

"Yeah sometimes, I mean, if we're not working," Eliot confirmed casually, as the timer for the cookies beeped. "She's probably over here whenever you and Sophie aren't feeding her," he added, excluding Nate from that equation since Eliot himself was the one who fed everyone when they were at the loft.

Sophie shook her head as she grabbed the mitts off the counter and pulled the cookies out of the oven. "No, Parker has only broken into my place maybe a dozen times over the last couple years, and only when she wants advice about something."

"Parker only ever comes over when I invite her for movie night," Hardison added. "She's never broken in."

" _That you know of_ ," Nate interjected from where he was working on cleaning cookie batter out of the toaster.

Hardison opened his mouth to refute that anyone could get past his security without him knowing, and shut it again just as quickly. He realized it was naïve to believe that Parker probably hadn't broken in at least once, just to prove that she could.

Eliot was actually legitimately surprised to hear that. He was well aware that in the last few months she had been spending the majority of her free time at his place, but he'd always assumed that at least at the beginning he was simply on her rotation.

"I'm telling you she's a stray cat! I made the mistake of feeding her once and now I can't get rid of her," he grumped.

"It seems like you've gotten used to having her around though," Sophie said, clearly seeing right through him, despite his best efforts. Although the fact that she was standing in front of a fridge covered with Parker's artwork probably didn't help his case.

Luckily, Eliot was spared from continuing this conversation when Hardison, who was still drinking soda from the bottle, suddenly did a spit take, spraying a fine, sticky, artificially orange-scented mess all over the counter top that Sophie had just finished wiping down.

"Honestly, Hardison?!" the grifter exclaimed. "I just cleaned that."

"Parker," was all the hacker had to say in explanation.

Eliot couldn't really twist around to follow Hardison's line of sight, but he didn't have to when the woman in question came gliding around the kitchen island, fresh from her shower, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around her torso.

"Damnit, Parker," he growled. " _Pants_!"

"Nuh-uh, that is the opposite of pants, Mama," Hardison babbled, shaking his head. "We are moving backwards on the subject of pants."

"Oh calm down, both of you," Parker said, annoyed, as she crossed the kitchen and pulled the grocery list Eliot kept running, from the side of the fridge. "I'll go get dressed in a minute."

"What are you even putting on there that couldn't wait two minutes?" Eliot asked, watching Parker scribble something across the pad.

"I keep forgetting I'm out of my shampoo. I had to use yours again," she explained. "I wanted to get it on the list while I'm still thinking about it."

"Oh, put my conditioner on there too," he added, when it sparked a memory. "I'm almost out and I don't want to use yours."

"Why are you using Eliot's shower?" Hardison asked, knowing that the guest bathroom had a tub/shower combo.

"If Eliot has shampoo, and Parker has conditioner, why can't they just share?" Nate asked, at the same time.

"Because Eliot has the best shower in the whole world!" Parker enthused, answering Hardison's question. "Water comes from every direction at once. It's like getting a massage while you're getting clean. Seriously, you should go try it. I did laundry yesterday, so there are plenty of clean towels."

"Because they have very different hair types," Sophie answered Nate. "One size does not fit all when it comes to hair maintenance. Honestly Nathan, they're not heathens."

"No one else is using my shower!" Eliot exclaimed, stopping _that_ nonsense before it could get started.

"Hardison," he gestured with the utensil that he was still holding, "I swear to god, if I find you in my bathroom I _will_ break your face. Nate, you could stand to use a little conditioner; you're lookin' kinda crunchy." He turned to Sophie who was currently nodding in agreement. "Those cookies need to get moved to the cooling rack or they're going to stick. And you," he leveled his best glare at an unimpressed Parker. "Clothes. _Now_."

Parker huffed and rolled her eyes at Eliot as she left the kitchen, which he retaliated to with a playful swat on the butt with the spatula as she walked past. She paused to stick her tongue out at him and then walked out of the room with as much dignity as one could muster when wearing only a damp bath towel.

When Parker reappeared minutes later, she was fully dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a hoodie of Eliot's that she'd all but claimed as her own after she'd stolen it when she'd had the flu a few months back. Without a word she went straight for the drawer where she knew Eliot kept the long-reach lighter.

"Alright, let's do this," she declared, flicking it on and smiling that unnerving smile of hers, before leading the way up the stairs.

Nate and Hardison followed Parker up to the roof, leaving Sophie downstairs with Eliot. Once the others were out of sight, Sophie leaned her elbows on the counter and turned her full attention on her remaining teammate. Eliot for his part remained impassive, refusing to speak first or to let the grifter see him squirm like he was one of her marks.

"Was that your sweatshirt she was wearing?"

"Don't start, Sophie," Eliot said warningly.

"What?" she asked innocently. "It was just a question."

"You're digging," he retorted, knowing her too well to not see right through her grifter tone when he heard it. "And I can already tell you're reading into things that aren't there."

"What am I supposed to think?" Sophie replied. "She's wearing your clothes, the joint shopping list, making cookies together," she said, taking a bite of one of said cookies. "It's all very... domestic."

"No, it's just that she has zero concept of boundaries. It's all just Parker being Parker. _That's it,_ " he said defensively.

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?" Sophie asked, taking another dainty bite of her cookie.

Eliot scoffed like it was the most ridiculous suggestion he'd ever heard, but was spared having to reply when Hardison came stomping down the stairs.

"You have a demon grill, man," he complained before he was even completely in view. "Possessed by the devil, I tell you!"

"I take it Parker got it started?" Eliot responded with a bemused smirk on his face.

"It almost took my eyebrows off," Hardison said, clearly traumatized by his short stint on the roof. " _My eyebrows_!"

"Yeah, I guess I should have warned you about standing back. Sorry," Eliot said, not sounding sorry in the least.

"You think?!"

"It was Parker and fire, what did you expect, man?"

"Eliot does have a point," Sophie pointed out, breaking off another piece of cookie to pop into her mouth.

"Hey, why does everyone get a cookie but me!" Hardison exclaimed, reaching out to grab one off the tray only to earn himself another rap on the knuckles with the spatula. "Ya'll are picking on me. It's a conspiracy, don't think I don't see it," he complained as he got the meat out of the fridge. "If I wasn't so hungry for lunch, and Nate didn't need these steaks right now, I'd get one of those cookies. You wouldn't be able to stop me."

"Mm-hmm. Keep walking," Eliot smirked as he watched Hardison head back up the stairs. He'd get his cookies once Parker said he could.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Long after steaks had been eaten and cookies had been consumed, the others had gone home and Eliot and Parker were once again left alone to their own devices.

Eliot was already in bed, sitting up against the headboard reading. He was half-listening to Parker humming in the bathroom while she was getting ready for bed and entirely ignoring the voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Sophie about how comfortably domestic the current moment was.

"Ey Arky?" Parker said poking her head out of the bathroom, her green toothbrush hanging out the side of her mouth.

"What Parker?" Eliot replied distractedly, not looking up from his book.

"I oes ebeyon eep owin ub ib ood?" she asked around a mouth full of toothpaste.

" _What_?" Eliot looked up at her incredulously. "Are you even speaking English?"

Parker rolled her eyes, but disappeared back into the bathroom so she could spit into the sink.

"I said, why does everyone keep showing up with food?" she repeated when she reemerged, padding on bare feet over to the far side of the bed. "I mean I know you can't cook right now, but don't they think I'm capable of keeping us fed?"

Eliot knew that was exactly why the team kept showing up with meals. "They're probably just trying to be nice, give you a break from having to worry about it," he said instead, as he watched Parker slide underneath the covers. He still didn't know how this had become a _thing_ , but he'd be lying if he said he hadn't already become accustomed to having her there.

"No," she shook her head. "They have judgey eyes, like they're surprised we're both still alive every time they come over."

Eliot sighed internally and shut his book. There were times that he missed the days when Parker would miss even the broadest social cues. But he wasn't going to lie to her and tell her that she was wrong, undermining what was still a relatively new skill of hers.

"They just don't have all the information, darlin'," he said, telling her that she was right without coming out and actually saying she was right.

Because while he knew that Parker would still live happily on a diet of cereal and fortune cookies, she knew that he didn't and therefore made the effort. Like the cheesy scrambled eggs she'd made for breakfast that morning. Sure, they were a _tad_ overcooked, and maybe a little _too_ cheesy, and he was concerned that his pan might never be the same again, but she'd _tried_. That was what was important. And that could be said for more than just food. The others, they just hadn't seen that side of her.

"But you and I," he continued, "we know better."

"I guess," Parker huffed, fluffing her pillow.

Without another word they both simultaneously reached over to turn off the lights on their respective nightstands, and Eliot once again had to push away Sophie's voice in his head. Because, sure, whatever it was that was going on between them was different, but it didn't have to _mean_ anything. If it worked for them, then that was enough.

He was just starting to drift off when Parker's voice broke the silence.

"Eliot?" she asked, her voice small.

"What is it Parker?" he sighed, not opening his eyes.

"Are you still awake?"

"I'm talking to you, aren't I."

"I dunno, maybe you're one of those people who talks in their sleep," she reasoned. "I had a foster sister like that once. You could hold a whole conversation with her and she'd answer you and everything. That's how I found out that she used to hide her allowance underneath the loose floorboard under her bed and-"

He cut her off. "I'm awake."

He rolled his head on his pillow in her direction and opened his eyes to look at her. She was laying on her back staring up at the ceiling, her hands folded primly on her chest over the covers. She was clearly nowhere close to falling asleep and something was obviously on her mind. He thought about asking what was wrong, but she'd already gotten his attention, so he knew she would speak once she was ready.

"Nate asked me a weird question when we were up on the roof today," she announced, after a few long moments.

"What'd he say?" Eliot asked warily, only able to imagine where the conversation was going to go next.

"He asked me if I was _happy_ ," Parker said, looking perplexed by the question even hours later.

Eliot understood her confusion. Not exactly in touch with his own feelings, Nate wasn't really one to come out and ask about the emotional state of his team. Even when there were times when it would have been more appropriate or beneficial, than when grilling steaks on Eliot's rooftop.

"What'd you say?"

"Happy about what?" she said, literally repeating her answer.

Eliot let out a huff, wondering if he was gonna have to drag the entire conversation out of her, play by play. "And then what did he say?"

"He asked if I was happy here," Parker revealed. "And I told him I liked Boston fine, it's just a city. And then I asked him if he was planning on moving the team. But then he told me he didn't mean here in Boston, but here with _you_."

"And?" Eliot asked, not entirely sure if he wanted to know. He knew that Parker's response wouldn't necessarily be the answer to Nate question, since he knew they were both operating under different assumptions of the situation.

"And I said that it was a stupid question," she said bluntly, rolling onto her side so that she was facing Eliot. "You're my favorite person, even when you're all grumpy and growly, and yell at me for annoying you or for not wearing pants. So why wouldn't I be happy."

"What did Nate say about that?"

"Nothing, he just got that look on his face that he gets when he's playing chess, but not sober chess," she clarified. "More like after his second glass of whiskey, but before his third."

It was an odd description, but apt. Eliot knew exactly the look she was talking about. It was a very distinctive expression.

"And then Hardison came back upstairs and they started talking about some research Nate has him doing," she said with a shrug. "It was weird."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Eliot told her, not really willing to get further into it. "Go to sleep, Parker."

For a second he thought she might not let it go, but then she relaxed into her pillow, and pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. "Goodnight Eliot," she said, closing her eyes.

"Goodnight, darlin'," he returned, hesitating for just a moment before continuing. "You know... you're my favorite person too." He was surprised to find himself saying it, and even more surprised to find it was true. "Even when you're being all flighty and weird, and driving me up the wall."

Without opening her eyes, Parker smiled and reached out to let her fingers tangle with his. "That makes me happy, too."

* * *

A/N And there's chapter eleven! I hope you all enjoyed it! I'll let you guys know now that chapter twelve is gonna change things up again as we head into the third and last phase of this story... but until then, feed the muse and let me know what you thought!


	12. Puzzle Pieces

A/N Here we go again! Big big chapter this time and I wont lie a little nervous about this one... all the thanks in the world go to Alexandra926 for holding my hand while I wrote this chapter and trust me I needed a lot of hand holding for this one... I hope you all enjoy it! I'm just going to go hide under my bed until you finish reading it...

* * *

Five weeks since his accident and almost a month since Eliot had been released from the hospital, life was slowly returning to some semblance of normal.

Well, what constituted as normal for their merry band of thieves.

Despite the fact that they had yet to take a new job, and there was no real reason for them to be there, the whole crew was back to congregating at Nate's during the day. Just like they always did whenever they went too long between cons. For Eliot, it had two extra benefits. One, it got him out of the house after being cooped up inside for far too long. And two, it kept everyone else out of his house as well.

Eliot was currently puttering about the kitchen, pulling ingredients out of the fridge and cabinets so that he could pull something together for dinner, feeling almost up to his old self. He'd had Parker help him remove his stitches weeks ago, and had traded in his leg brace for one that fit comfortably beneath his jeans shortly after that. His bruises had long since faded and his ribs had knit themselves back together just like they had so many times before. He'd stopped wearing the sling for his broken clavicle just a few days ago and it only twinged in pain occasionally if he moved his arm wrong. In fact, the only outward sign that he'd been hurt at all, let alone so severely, was the black cast he was still wearing on his right arm.

While he ran the vegetables under the sink to wash them, Eliot glanced around the loft, his gaze landing on each of his teammates in turn. Nate was sitting on the couch, attempting to finish a crossword puzzle while pointedly ignoring Hardison who was sitting on the couch next to him. The hacker was playing one of his ridiculous video games on the big screens, shouting at the TV as though the trolls he was fighting, or whatever they were, could hear him. The girls were sitting at the dining table with a fashion magazine open in front of them. Sophie was happily chattering on about something or other, frequently pointing at the magazine for emphasis. And although she was facing away from him, the slump of Parker's shoulders, and the impatient jittering of her knee under the table, told Eliot that she wanted to be wanted to be anywhere other than where she was.

"Hey Parker," he called over to her.

The blonde whipped her head around, the SOS clear in her eyes. "Yeah, Sparky?"

"I could use some help over here. Wanna be my sous-chef?" he offered, tossing her a lifeline.

She was up and out of her seat so fast that Sophie had reach over and grab Parker's vacated chair before it toppled over.

"Your soup chef?" she repeated, confusion written all over her face, as she rounded the peninsula to join him in the kitchen. "I thought you were making stir-fry."

"No, _sous_ not soup. S. O. U. S. It means..." He shook his head, "You know what, nevermind. Just come over here and chop the vegetables for me."

Strictly speaking, he didn't actually need the help. While he wasn't naturally ambidextrous, years of training had made him almost as good with a knife with his left hand, as he was with his right. After all, you never knew when you were going to be down a hand in a fight.

But Parker was clearly looking for an out from her conversation with Sophie, but didn't want to be rude, which was big character development on her part, so he figured he'd give her one. Handing her a knife and a couple of halved bell peppers that he'd already scraped out to get started with, he set her up at the cutting board while he turned back around to peel the carrots. When he glanced back over, he dropped what he was working on to go rescue the pepper she was hacking away at.

"Whoa, hold up there darlin'," Eliot interjected. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm cutting a pepper?" she replied, more of a question than a statement, like she wasn't sure if it was a trick question.

"No, you're mutilating a pepper is what you're doing. You've eaten my stir fry, you know what it's supposed to look like." He picked up the cutting board and scraped it straight into the sink. "You gotta do it like I showed you, remember?" he said, referring to when he'd coached her through omelet-making a few weeks ago, back when he really _couldn't_ hold a knife yet.

He slid up behind her and covered her hands with his, bracketing her with his arms against the counter. "Like this," he said, guiding her movements. "Smooth, even cuts, let the knife do the work, and remember to keep your fingertips curled and out of the way. I don't want you cuttin' those talented hands of yours."

If it had been anyone else, Parker would have panicked and gotten stabby by now. Pinned as she was against the counter, by a man much stronger than her, with no obvious escape route. But it didn't even cross her mind. Rather than panicking, she simply listened to the low rumble of his voice in her ear and concentrated on making perfectly uniform slices of bell pepper, leaning back into his chest when he let his hands slip from hers and settle on her hips, as he supervised the cutting of another halved pepper.

"That a girl, just like that," he praised, giving her hips a gentle squeeze, before stepping away to finish peeling the carrots.

Over at the dining table, Sophie was surreptitiously watching the pair in the kitchen from underneath her eyelashes, while she pretended to be absorbed in her magazine. She got the impression that they had no idea the picture they made together. How Eliot got that soft expression that he seemed to save exclusively for Parker, while he watched her concentrate on cutting vegetables with the same seriousness that she had when cracking a safe. The way Parker seemed to shine when she turned to show off her work to Eliot and he gave her an approving nod.

Looking at them now, Sophie wondered how she ever could have believed with such certainty, that the two of them living together while Eliot recuperated was going to end in total disaster. Normally, she hated being wrong, but just this once she found she didn't mind so much.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Eliot was spending his evening sitting on the couch, drinking a beer and watching the game, enjoying some all too rare alone time. Shortly after they'd arrived back at his place, Parker had reminded him it was Tuesday and disappeared downstairs. He still thought it was odd that she'd befriended his elderly neighbor, but if they were both getting something out of it, then who was he to judge.

It was getting late when Parker finally appeared out of his peripheral vision, without him hearing her come in.

"Have a good visit?" he asked, glancing over, when she flopped down next to him.

"Yeah, Madame du Pompadour got groomed today, so she was freshly pink," Parker mentioned, getting comfortable on the couch, swinging her feet up to sit in Eliot's lap. "I want to get a dog, maybe a samoyed."

"What would you do with a dog?" Eliot asked dubiously, lifting his arm out of the way of her incoming legs, then settling his hand back down on her ankle.

"Dye it green and name it Franklin," she responded readily.

"That's a terrible reason to get a pet."

"Well I'd love, and feed, and play with Franklin too," she added, with a roll of her eyes.

He knew he probably didn't want to know, but he asked anyways. "Why Franklin?"

"For the hundred dollar bill," she replied like it should have been obvious. "Or would Hamilton be better since he founded the treasury?"

Yup. He shouldn't have asked. "It doesn't matter, because you're not getting a dog," he told her. "Especially a samoyed. Do you have any idea how high-strung herding dogs are?"

Parker pouted. "Why not? Don't you like dogs? You're not allergic to them are you?" she gasped, looking horrified at the prospect. "Because they have pills for that."

"What? No, I'm not allergic. I love dogs," he admitted truthfully, "but they're high maintenance. They need everyday care and attention. We don't exactly have a lifestyle that is conducive for pet care. We go out of town for days, sometimes weeks at a time."

Parker frowned, knowing that Eliot had a point. "What about a snake, then?" she countered. "I could just get one that's already green. That way I wouldn't even have to dye it."

"A snake?" he asked doubtfully.

"Yeah!" Parker said, clearly warming up to the idea. "Something like a ball python. They don't get too big, and they only need to eat every couple weeks."

Eliot just shook his head.

"And I could make Hardison hold it, and then watch him do that thing where he's totally freaking out, but is trying to act like he's not freaking out," she continued, a devious grin spreading across her face. "That's always funny."

For a split second, Eliot felt his resolve weakening, before he came back to his senses. "And what if we had to burn Boston with no warning," he reminded her of the realities of their chosen profession. "You couldn't just leave it behind could you?"

"No, I couldn't abandon Franklin," she sighed, knowing that Eliot was right. "Maybe I could _borrow_ a snake for awhile, just to make Hardison squirm?" she proposed hopefully.

He considered it for a moment. Watching Hardison squirm _was_ always a good time. "Maybe."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, until Eliot glanced over at Parker. He was about to tell her to move her feet so he could get up and get another beer until he saw the look on her face.

"What are you thinking so hard about over there?" he asked.

"Huh?" She looked over at him like she'd forgotten for a moment that he was even there.

"What's on your mind?" he asked again. She'd had the same look she got when she was trying to solve a particularly tricky security system.

"I was just thinking about something Miss Angelika said earlier when I was downstairs," Parker said, still looking distracted. "We were talking about… people. In a general way."

Eliot didn't think that was necessarily the truth, or at the very least not the whole truth, but he didn't call her on it. "And?" he asked leadingly.

"And I said, that I think people are like locks," she continued. "Every single one is different and you have to figure out how they unlock. Some are easy and practically pop open on their own. But others are harder, and you have be patient and fiddle with them. You have to listen carefully for the click."

Eliot followed the metaphor easily. While it was quite obviously Parker logic, it still made perfect sense to him.

"But Miss Angelika said that people are like jigsaw puzzles," she continued. "That you see the picture on the box and you think that you know what it looks like. But that you don't really understand a person until you look at the individual pieces and see how they fit together." She met Eliot's gaze, "What do you think?"

He'd always thought that people were more like knives, but he didn't see the need to confuse the issue further with yet another metaphor. "Darlin', I hit people for a living. I've never been much of a philosopher," he said instead.

Parker shot him an unimpressed look, and kicked him lightly with her heel. "Don't try to act dumb," she scolded. "I know better."

"Fine," he grabbed her foot so that she couldn't kick him again, as he seriously considered her question since it seemed to be important to her. "I think maybe you're both right," he told her, idly tracing her ankle bone with his fingertips. "You ever seen those puzzle boxes that have all kinds of tricks to open to them?" he asked, waiting for Parker's nod before continuing. "I think people are like that. You need to figure out each individual puzzle to open up the lock to the next layer. Some people are more complicated than others so they have more layers, more puzzles, more locks, before you get to the heart of them."

Parker considered this for several long moments and Eliot stayed quiet, letting her work through it on her own.

"But the more complicated the box... the more rewarding it is to get to the center?" she said it as though she wasn't sure that was right, looking for his validation.

"Yeah, something like that."

Parker nodded and went back to her silent musing, she was clearly still thinking hard on the subject, but it appeared to Eliot that his required participation on the subject was over. Which was why he was taken by surprise when she addressed him again.

"Can I have one of your puzzle pieces?"

" _What_?"

"Will you tell me something I don't know about you?"

"Parker…" he hesitated. He didn't think he wanted to play this game. Besides, wasn't she aware how much more she already got of him? How much further in he let her, compared to everyone else?

"It doesn't have to be a big piece," she assured him, when she saw his apprehension. "Just a new one. Like your favorite color."

"My favorite color is blue," he told her readily. "I don't really think that counts as a secret though," he admitted, since he didn't really care who knew that.

"Oh, is that why you have so many blue shirts?" Parker asked.

"Huh? I guess," he shrugged. He hadn't been aware that she'd paid any attention to what he wore, beyond what she wanted to steal for herself.

"I thought you just wore a lot of blue because it makes your eyes pop."

Eliot looked at her sideways. " _What_?"

"When you wear blue, your eyes look _super_ blue," she said. "Don't act like you don't know that."

He just scoffed.

"Okay Sparky, if that didn't count, tell me something else," she all but demanded.

"Fine," Eliot sighed, realizing she wasn't going to let this go. He tried to think of something harmless, but still something that Parker would enjoy. And then he realized she'd just given him an idea, "I actually don't really mind it when you call me Sparky."

"Oh, I already knew that," she said with the same confidence she would say that money is green.

"No you didn't," he countered.

"Of course I did. Because when I call you Sparky, you use your 'I'm only acting annoyed because it's what people expect of me' growl, not your 'I'm actually annoyed' growl," she explained. "It's a very _distinctive_ growl."

He shot her an unimpressed look.

"Just like _that's_ your 'I'm actually amused, but I don't want to encourage you' look," Parker said with a smug grin.

Eliot let himself chuckle since she apparently already had his number. "You're getting a lot better at reading people. Sophie's rubbing off on you."

"Eh," Parker shrugged. "Mainly just you. Other people still confuse me. You just make more sense than everyone else."

Eliot honestly wasn't sure what to make of _that_ , so he bypassed it completely. "Do you know _why_ I don't hate your nickname?"

That piqued her interest. "No, why?"

"Because ever since I was a kid, every nickname anyone has ever called me has had something to with the violence I'm capable of. From the high school football team, through the army, and afterwards. But as ridiculous and dumb as it sounds, _Sparky_ , well… it's different," he explained with a wry twist of his lips. "And so, coming from you, it doesn't really bother me so much."

"I knew you loved it," she said with a bright grin, clearly pleased with this information.

"I did not say I _loved_ it," he corrected, although he was grinning, too. "I said I don't _hate_ it. That's two very different things."

Parker was clearly unconcerned with semantics. "Okay, your turn," she announced.

"For what?"

"To ask me a question."

"That's alright, darlin'," he said, giving her ankle a squeeze. Parker could share whatever she wanted to, whenever she wanted to. He was never one to pry.

"No," she said insistently, looking determined. "It's only fair. You gave me a piece, so now I give you one. I want to."

"Fine," Eliot said, knowing she wouldn't let it go. He cast about for a question that wouldn't be too personal. Finally, he settled on one that seemed simple enough, and was something he was actually curious about. "Is Parker your first or your last name?"

When he felt her tense underneath his hand, he worried that maybe it _was_ too personal.

"Neither," she answered after a long moment where he thought that she might not answer at all. "It was my brother's name."

 _Shiiiiiiit_. He'd tried to pick something innocuous and instead he'd stepped right on an emotional landmine.

"I only knew him for ten months," she said softly. "Not even a whole year."

"Sweetheart," Eliot said gently, "you don't have to-"

"I want to," she told him, meeting his eye for a moment, before looking back down at her hands. "He was my half-brother I guess, and he had other relatives that had taken him in for awhile. We were too little to remember each other from... before. I'd already been in the system for years at that point, but it was his first placement. I was so excited when the caseworker told me who he was. He was the only thing in my life that was only _mine_. Everything else was either a hand me down, or shared. But he was _my_ brother."

Eliot listened silently, but he let his hand lay heavier against her ankle, both grounding her and reminding her that he was there for her.

"I was seven and he was five, and he was so scared that first night, that I decided right there and then, that I was going to take care of him. I was a pro at being a foster, I'd already been shuffled around a dozen different homes by then, so I was gonna teach him everything I knew. And I did. For ten months." Her voice broke slightly, "And then..."

"I know, darlin'," Eliot interrupted softly, not wanting to make her say what he already knew. While this was obviously difficult for her to talk about, she was more composed than she had been the last time she'd discussed it. But he supposed that came from the fact she was volunteering the information, rather than having it ripped from her against her will.

"In the system you learn not to get attached to things," she continued, meeting his gaze, sounding more matter of fact and less emotional than she had a moment before. "You gotta travel light, and _things_ only weigh you down. Thieves live the same way. But the one thing I could always carry with me, was his name."

"It's a fitting tribute and…" Eliot trailed off as he tried to think of how to phrase what he wanted to say in way that it would mean the most to Parker. "Thank you for sharing your puzzle piece."

She nodded hard, just once, and Eliot knew she understood. They sat in silence for a few minutes, both of them focused on the game playing on the television, but neither of them really watching it.

"I'm tired," Parker announced suddenly, already up and off the couch. "I'm going to bed."

"Okay, darlin'."

Eliot tracked her movements through the room. A large part of him wanted to get up and follow and make sure that she was really alright. But he also figured she might just be using the excuse of being tired so she could have some space to herself for awhile. But when she hesitated at the edge of the hallway for just a moment and glanced over her shoulder to where he was still sitting on the couch, he saw the question that she didn't want to ask in her eyes.

"You know, I might call it an early night too," he said casually, not missing the way her shoulders slumped in relief as he followed her down the hall.

They went through their nightly routines quickly and quietly and before long they were tucking themselves into bed.

Normally, Eliot had noticed, Parker would start out firmly on her own side of the bed, but as the night progressed she would slowly migrate towards the middle. By the time he woke up in the morning, she would be so close he could feel her body heat, but never _quite_ touching. Tonight, though, she cut right to the chase, snuggling in close, leaving only centimeters between them.

Eliot was hit with the sudden urge to close that distance and draw her into his chest. As though maybe if he could just hold her tight enough, he could will away all the terrible things she'd been through. But it didn't work that way. So he simply reached up to turn off the lamp, said goodnight and closed his eyes.

It was a long time before he fell asleep.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

When Eliot woke up a few short hours later, he knew that something was wrong but he didn't know what. He reached out with all his senses, trying to figure out what had pulled him from his sleep. The smallest of whimpers coming from the bed beside him captured his notice. But the silent tears streaking down Parker's cheeks had his full attention. He knew that she had nightmares sometimes, but this was the first one that he'd personally witnessed.

"Parker…" He gently shook her shoulder, "Parker, wake up."

He was alert and ready to dodge in case she woke up swinging, but what he wasn't prepared for was for her to wake up with his gasped name on her lips, and then for her to launch herself into his arms.

"It's okay. I got you, darlin'," he said soothingly, as she shook in his arms. She was breathing in big heaving gasps and he could feel her pulse jackhammering away.

"You're okay," she said, clutching him tighter.

"Of course I'm okay," he reassured her. "Why wouldn't I be?"

She squeezed her eyes tight and shook her head.

He ventured a guess. "In your dream… was I not?"

A sob escaped her chest and she buried her face in the crook of his neck.

"Alright, it's okay, you don't have to talk about it."

"It was so real," she said after a moment. "I was reliving it all over again. The sound of the gunshots and the breaking of glass. Watching from the roof as you went out the window. Too far away to do anything but watch as you hit the ground. The _sound_. I'll never forget the sound."

Eliot inhaled sharply through his teeth. They'd never talked about it, so he hadn't realized that Parker had actually _seen_ him fall, until now.

She pulled away slightly as she recounted his accident, and Eliot got the distinct impression that even though she was looking right at him, she wasn't seeing him as he was now, sitting safe and whole in his bed, but she was seeing him as he'd been after his fall, shot up and broken.

Parker slid her hand down Eliot's chest, then up and under his shirt until it rested over the fresh, puckered scar on his stomach. "There was so much blood and it was so warm on my hands," she said in a near whisper. "But it cooled so quickly on my skin. It didn't seem right that it could go from so hot and alive, to so cold and dry, that fast."

"You tried to say my name," she continued. "But you were coughing up blood and couldn't get it out." Her fingertips ghosted over his lips, like they could wipe away the phantom blood. "I was begging you to hold on, to stay with me. And even though I could tell it hurt you to do it, you lifted your arm and touched my face," she said mirroring the action, her hand lingering on his cheek.

Eliot was barely breathing as he listened to her speak, hearing this all for the first time. His memories of that day ended well before he went out the window, and he'd never bothered to ask what happened, beyond the list of his injuries.

"And then you passed out. But in my dream..." her eyes started to water. "In my dream..."

"I didn't _just_ pass out, did I," he finished for her.

She shook her head, and once again buried her face in his neck.

He could feel her trembling start back up and he simply held her tighter. Eliot supposed her dream made some logical sense. After talking about her brother's death earlier, and his own near miss still so fresh in her mind, it was easy to connect the same dots her subconscious did.

"Aw, sweetheart, it was just a dream," he consoled her. "I know it was bad, and I'm sorry you had to see all that, but I'm fine now."

"I don't… I don't want to be left with just your name," she choked out, as she fought back tears.

"You won't," he assured her, rubbing a calming hand up and down her back. "I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere."

"Everyone leaves eventually, Eliot," she murmured into the hollow of his throat. "It's not always by choice."

"Parker, sweetheart, look at me," he requested, bringing a hand up to cradle her face when she did, gently wiping an errant tear away with his thumb. "I won't lie to you and tell you that our jobs don't come without their fair share of risk. We both know better. But you and me, and the rest of the team, we all have each other's backs. Every time we go out, we all work together to make sure we all come home. And I promise you, that I will always do my best to come back to you. And my best is pretty damn good."

Before he even realized that she was moving, Parker had closed the distance between them and was kissing him hard.

"Whoa, Parker…?" he asked, pulling away slightly, taken aback.

" _Eliot_ ," she said with a choked sob, before smashing her mouth to his once again.

All the reasons why they shouldn't do this flashed through his mind in an instant. He told himself he needed to stop this before it went too far. But it was so hard to think, when she felt as perfect as she did pressed up against him. And when her hands dug into his hair, her fingernails scratching against his scalp, the reasons why this was a bad idea seemed so far away and hard to remember.

" _Eliot, please_ ," she pleaded against his lips. " _I need_..."

Any reservations he still had, evaporated in that instant. "Shhh…." he soothed, gentling the desperation in her kiss. "I've got you, baby. I'm gonna take such good care of you."

When she started tugging on his shirt, he lifted his arms to let her pull it over his head. And after she unceremoniously whipped off the shirt she was wearing, he flipped her onto her back, determined to worship every inch of her skin.

Somehow, he had been taken completely by surprise, and yet, at the same time he knew that it wasn't really a surprise at all. That this was culmination of something that had been a long time in the making. It wasn't until he had been given explicit permission, that he'd been able to let himself feel how long he'd wanted this, how much he wanted her.

She was so responsive as he took his time working his way down her body, letting him know exactly how he was making her feel. Every sigh, gasp, and moan that came from her lips, only inspired him to redouble his efforts. To draw out more of those delicious noises that he would never get tired of hearing. He had to make some adjustments due to the cast he was wearing, but it didn't slow him down. He had always been good at adapting on the fly.

Finally settling himself between her thighs, he trailed open-mouthed kisses and delicate nips up the sensitive skin of the inside of one thigh and down the other, until Parker lost patience and buried her hands in his hair and forced his mouth to where she wanted him most. His rumbling chuckle against her clit sent her arching off the mattress, and he had to use one arm across her stomach to pin her hips in place.

As worked up as she was, it didn't take long for him to make her come under his fingers and tongue, and he didn't even give her the chance to come down from her first high before he was working her right towards a second one. Her second orgasm seemed to take her by surprise as she squealed and clamped her legs down so hard around Eliot's head that it made his ears ring. When she started squirming away, he took the hint and backed off, crawling back up her body until they were eye to eye.

"Hi," she greeted casually, if not a bit breathlessly, as if he hadn't just spent the last twenty minutes with his head between her thighs.

"Hi," he echoed, looking all too proud of himself at the glazed look in her eye, knowing he'd put it there. He was so hard that it hurt, but he could wait, knowing she needed a break after coming twice in such a short timespan.

She stretched her neck up to capture his lips with her own, tasting herself on his tongue. She kissed him like she lived, hard, shameless and greedy, and he couldn't get enough of her.

Using a move that he'd taught her against him, she flipped them over so that she was now on top, looking down at him through a curtain of hair, as she straddled his waist. Not that he was complaining about the position he found himself in, especially when she then reached between them and grabbed his erection firmly around the base, squeezing gently before giving him several leisurely strokes.

"I wanna ride you," Parker said, with a positively filthy grin, swirling her thumb over the tip of his head.

"I ain't gonna stop you," Eliot replied, with a grin of his own.

And with zero ceremony, she lined herself up and sank down on top of him.

When he was enveloped in her tight welcoming heat, it was like coming home. He was so sure that he'd never fit so perfectly inside anyone before, that he had to grab her hips to keep her from moving, actually needing to take a second to regroup. Which apparently was a second too long for Parker, who started rhythmically clenching her muscles around him, until a strangled curse escaped his throat. Parker was looking down at him with a self-satisfied smirk and an arched eyebrow, so he rolled his hips in a way that made her eyes roll back in her head in retaliation.

She looked like a goddess as she rode him, all smooth pale skin and lithe muscle, her head thrown back and her body arched as she braced herself with her hands on his thighs. The position gave him the perfect view to watch himself disappear into her body over and over again, as she effortlessly found her rhythm. He was torn between just watching and needing to get his hands and mouth on her. Eventually, the second impulse won out and he sat up, taking a pert nipple into his mouth and lavishing it with attention, before switching to the other side and showing it the same treatment.

When her pace began to falter, she pushed him back flat onto the bed, leaning forward to brace herself on his chest. Finding an angle that she liked, she took exactly what she wanted, grinding down hard against his pubic bone, chasing her oncoming climax with a singular determination. It took all of his self control to hold back his own release, when her muscles clenched down around him like a vise as she came.

When she collapsed bonelessly on his chest, he gave her a few moments to breathe before he rolled them over once again. He began thrusting slowly, pulling almost all the way out before pushing all the way in, in smooth, languid strokes. He kept up with that pace until Parker started rolling her hips, meeting each thrust trying to wordlessly encourage him to move faster.

" _Eliot_ ," she whined, when he didn't seem inclined to listen.

"What's wrong, baby?" he asked, hiding his smirk by nibbling on her neck, just over her pounding pulse point.

"I need…"

"What do you need?"

"Harder."

He snapped his hips to hers, the whole bed rocking with each thrust.

"Faster," she demanded, when that wasn't enough, either. "More."

That was what he'd been waiting for. "Anything you want."

Taking advantage of her flexibility, he hooked one of her legs over his shoulder, leaning into the split. The moan that came from Parker's throat, told him she approved of the change of angle and he began moving in earnest.

"Can you come one more time for me, sweetheart?" he asked, when he felt himself edging.

"I can't," she gasped out with a shake her head, her eyes screwed up tight.

"Sure you can, give me one more, darlin'," he said, sliding a hand between their bodies to rub her clit.

"It's too soon," she said, her voice almost a whine, even as she felt that coiling feeling deep in her belly.

"Just one more. You can do it, baby. Look at me," he commanded, waiting for her to open her eyes. "Come for me."

"El-... El-... _Eliot_!"

She bit down hard on his shoulder as she came, the unexpected sharp flash of pain carrying him right over the edge with a shout of her name. Pure pleasure shot through his body like the fifty thousand volts of electricity from one of those tasers Parker enjoyed so much. Lights flashed behind his eyes and even his teeth were buzzing as he came harder than he ever had in his life.

It strained his pride just a little when he realized that he'd seemingly lost all the strength in his arms and legs, and he collapsed heavily on top of her. Once he'd regained some semblance of muscle control, he tried to roll them over, but Parker grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back to her.

"No," she ordered, breathless. "Stay."

"Baby, I have to be crushing you."

"I'm fine. Just stay for a little while."

She didn't know how to explain it, but she _needed_ his weight, heavy and solid, to bring her back to herself. She couldn't even explain it to herself. In fact, she'd never even had sex where she hadn't been on top before. She'd never had this level of trust with a past partner, to even dream of allowing them the upper hand. But now, with Eliot pressing her unyieldingly into the mattress, she simply felt safe and protected. It was a feeling she usually only had when she was secure in a rig of her own design, or when she was tucked away deep in a vent somewhere where no one would be able to follow.

He gave her a couple minutes, waiting until the small tremors that were still periodically rolling through her body seemed to abate. When he went to roll them over the second time, she didn't protest, other than a low grumble in the back of her throat. He was still trying to get his heart to slow, while he traced idle patterns on her bare back, when he felt like he should say _something_.

"That was…"

"Yeah."

"And it…"

"I know," Parker agreed, nuzzling into the hollow of his throat, before lifting her head with great effort. She realized they were laying at an odd angle. "Did we break your bed?"

"I don't think so," Eliot replied, not sounding entirely sure. "I think the mattress is just sliding off the box spring."

"Oh. Okay. Good," she said, settling back down. "I like your bed."

"Me too," he agreed. "I'll get up and fix it… in a minute."

And he meant to, he really did. But all his limbs felt like they were filled with lead, and moving seemed like so much effort. And when Parker's breathing deepened and slowed, he decided it wasn't worth disturbing her over and it could wait until morning.

He was just drifting off to sleep for the second time that night, this time with Parker draped across his chest, her head resting over his heart, and their legs tangled beneath the sheets, when he felt more than heard her whisper against his skin.

" _LeAnne_."

"What's that, sweetheart?" he asked tiredly.

"My name. It's LeAnne. You can have it, to carry with you."

Eliot knew the gravity of the gift she had just endowed him with and was humbled by it. But before he could think of an appropriate response, Parker's changing breathing told him she'd fallen asleep. Carefully, as not to disturb her, he brushed the hair off her face and pressed a lingering kiss to her crown. Despite his earlier exhaustion, it took a long time for him to fall asleep, instead choosing to bask in the warmth and affection this crazy, contrary, enigma of a woman filled him with.

* * *

A/N ::pokes head out:: soooo... what did you all think? I told ya it was gonna be a big chapter! And like I said I'm super nervous about it so if you could let me know what you thought, you'll do an anxious author's soul good :) Until next time!


	13. Like A Thief In The Night

A/N Welcome to another Monday! This chapter is a little shorter than normal, since it's a bit of a bridge chapter but I hope you enjoy it regardless. And as always I need to thank Alexandra926 for being generally awesome :)

* * *

Laying on his stomach, sprawled diagonally across his bed, his face buried in Parker's pillow, Eliot awoke with the smile of a well-satisfied man on his face. Rather than pulling himself into immediate alertness like he usually did, he allowed himself the indulgence of hovering in that special place between awake and sleep, where the world was soft and grey and nothing could touch him. He let his thoughts wander, and not surprisingly, they wandered directly to the events of the night before.

Sleeping with Parker had been… a revelation.

There was really no other word for it.

He'd forgotten what it could be like when sex was more than just a quick roll in the hay to let off steam. What it was like to be with someone he truly cared about. To allow himself to drop his guard, and to be fully in the moment. To not feel the need to stay in his head, completely in control of the situation, and instead allowing himself to lose himself in another person. Everything about it just felt _right_. He hadn't felt this way since he was a much younger man who still believed that things like planning for a future with someone was possible for a person like him.

A small voice in the back of his head told him that maybe he should be worried about how last night might change things between him and Parker; how this might complicate things. But he pushed that voice away, refusing to let it burst his bubble. This was the end of a road they had started down a long time ago, from the first night that Parker had fallen asleep on his couch. Or maybe it had been somewhere around the time she'd started popping by for dinner unannounced. Or perhaps this had been a foregone conclusion from the moment he'd watched her fearlessly take a flying leap off that roof on that very first job.

Regardless of where it had begun, what was important was that they had reached this point organically; their relationship had developed in its own time. Evolving naturally from strangers, to reluctant allies, to crew, to friends, to... whatever it was they were now. And while that journey hadn't been without its growing pains, the important thing was that they had navigated those changes together. Just as they would continue to do.

As he nestled his face deeper into Parker's pillow, breathing in the warm scent of her honey and peach shampoo, his mind was calm, his soul was at peace, and he was happy.

In fact, he thought, the only thing that would make him happier would be if he still had Parker in his arms.

 _Wait..._

Finally opening his eyes, the blissed-out grin on his face faded. For the first time in weeks, he was waking up alone.

 _Parker was gone._

The light streaming through his window, told him that he'd slept later than he usually did. Which wasn't entirely a surprise considering the events of last night. So there had to be a chance she'd simply woken up before him and started her morning, right?

A quick glance towards the dark ensuite told him she wasn't in the bathroom, humming off-key to herself as she got ready for the day. Reaching out with his senses, he couldn't hear her puttering around the kitchen, pouring herself a bowl of cereal to munch on before he got up to force something with some sort redeeming nutritional value on her for breakfast. Nor could he hear the sound of her feet pounding against the treadmill in his home gym that she liked to use when she wanted to burn off excess energy. In fact, the only thing that he could hear at all was the low thrumming of the HVAC system kicking on.

"Parker? Darlin'?" he called out, hoping for a shout back, or better yet, for her to come wandering back through the bedroom door, wearing nothing but one of his shirts and an enigmatic smile.

He still wasn't able to quite accept that Parker wasn't somewhere in the condo, even as the warm and fuzzy feelings in his chest that he had woken with, were replaced by something hollow and cold. So he rolled out of bed, grabbed the pajama pants that had been tossed negligently to the floor the night before, and pulled them on before doing a quick check of the rest of the house. A quick patrol of the rooms confirmed what he already knew, but didn't want to believe.

Standing in the middle of his cold and quiet living room, there was nothing Eliot could do, but accept that she was gone. The logical side of his brain suggested that her disappearance could be something as mundane as her having gone down to the market down the street to pick up something for breakfast, and she would walk back through the door any second. But the sinking feeling in his gut told him that wasn't true. All his instincts screamed at him that she was _gone_. And if he had to guess, she'd probably left hours ago.

"Dammit, Parker," he sighed to the empty room, scrubbing a hand down the stubble on his cheek.

She hadn't taken anything with her. Her clothes were still in the dresser drawers, her hairbrush on the vanity, her favorite harness hanging in the closet, her green Chucks sitting by the front door. But he knew he couldn't take any of that as an indication that she would be returning any time soon. After all, it had been just a few short hours ago that they had been discussing the necessity of traveling light. He knew that, to Parker's sensibilities, anything she hadn't taken with her was easily replaceable.

In fact, there were only two items of importance that she had left behind.

Her name.

And him.

It stung more than he wanted to admit.

He tried to tell himself it was because _he_ was the one that left in the middle of night, not the other way around. And if he was the one sneaking out before sunrise, he at least had the decency to leave a note. But if he was being honest with himself, he knew that wasn't the real reason he had to stop himself from punching a hole through his drywall.

Not wanting to examine that line of thought too closely, he stomped back to his bedroom, and headed straight for the shower. Turning on all the shower heads as hot as he could stand, he ignored the sting of what he was sure were crescent-shaped marks on his shoulders and long scratches down his back.

Sticking his head under the water, he closed his eyes and tried to find his inner calm, letting the pounding spray wash away the smell of Parker and sex from his skin. Instead of peace, all he found was the mental image of how he'd been hoping the morning would begin. Parker there with him, taking advantage of the shower more than large enough for two. Her long legs wrapped around his waist as he took her hard against the cold tiles, while hot water rained down around them.

With a muttered curse, Eliot flipped the hot water to cold with enough force that later he'd be glad he didn't twist the handle right off the wall. He washed up as quickly as he could, but his teeth were chattering by the time he'd finished his shower.

He dried off as perfunctorily as possible, wrapping a towel around his waist while he stood at the vanity, going through the rest of his normal morning routine on rote. He brushed his teeth, making sure to grab the blue toothbrush, not the green, reaching over the bubblegum toothpaste for his wintergreen. He cleaned the blonde hair out of his wide toothed comb, because _someone_ always forgot to do that, and detangled his hair still dripping from the shower. He was working out a particularly stubborn snarl, when his eye caught something in the mirror.

There was a distinctly bite-shaped bruise on his shoulder.

Of their own volition his fingers moved to trace the mark, a shiver running down his spine at the memory of how he'd gotten it. He wasn't sure exactly how long he'd been standing there staring at the mirror, fixated on his own shoulder, before he snapped himself out of it.

"There's something wrong with you," he muttered to his reflection, shaking his head at the fact he was acting like some kind of lovesick teenager who'd just gotten his first hickey.

He finished getting ready as quickly as possible, getting dressed in the first clothes he found and shoving a beanie over his still damp hair. He was pulling a jacket out of the closet when his gaze landed on his positively debauched bed. With the sheets a mess and the mattress still askew there was absolutely no doubt as to what had happened there last night.

With an angry growl that originated deep in his chest, he righted the mattress and ripped the bedding off of it. Washing the sheets wouldn't do. It wasn't enough to just erase the evidence, he wanted to obliterate it. With the bundle of sheets still in his arms, he stormed out of the house, letting the door slam behind him, and marched straight to the trash chute and tossed the bedding inside. He could always buy new sheets.

He purposely took the long way across town, the drive to Nate's giving him a chance to cool down. And by the time he was parking the truck behind the mastermind's building, he could _almost_ pretend that the last twenty-four hours hadn't happened and it was just another day.

Letting himself into the loft, he took stock of the room. Hardison was already on the couch with a keyboard in his lap, his eyes locked on the screens in front of him. While Sophie was sitting at the dining table having a cup of tea and reading a magazine.

"Hey," he greeted them casually, hanging up his coat on the hook by the door.

"Hey guys. Wait, where's Parker?" Hardison asked after he glanced up and realized that Eliot was alone.

"How should I know?" Eliot snapped before he caught himself. He cleared his throat. "She's not here?" he asked, his stomach sinking. He hadn't even realized that there was a part of him that had been holding out hope that she might already be at Nate's, acting like it was any other day, until she wasn't.

"No, she's not. Why isn't she with you?" Sophie asked looking up from her magazine, surprised by the question.

"It wasn't my job to watch her," he grumbled.

"But it was sorta her job to watch you," Hardison pointed out. "Not that you need to be watched," he course-corrected when he saw the dangerous look that Eliot was shooting him. "But you _are_ the one who's been doing your best Mary Had A Little Lamb impression."

"What in heaven's name are you talking about?" Sophie asked, looking at the hacker askance.

"Ya know, _everywhere that Mary went that lamb was sure to go_?" Hardison clarified. "Dude, I'm just sayin', you two have been attached at the hip for the past month. So if anyone would know where she is, it'd be you."

Eliot just growled something uncomplimentary about Hardison's parentage, and went to make himself a cup of coffee.

"But seriously, where is Parker?" Sophie asked, following Eliot to the kitchen. "Isn't she still staying with you?"

Eliot couldn't do anything but shrug, focusing all his attention on assembling the parts required to make a pot of coffee, purposely avoiding making eye contact with Sophie lest she read more in his expression than he wanted her too.

"Yeah, she was. But she was gone when I woke up this morning. I thought maybe she had come over here early," he said with forced casualness. "Or if not that, maybe one of you might know where she ran off to."

"Nah man," Hardison said, from where he was eavesdropping on the couch. "I ain't heard from her."

Sophie gave him a long evaluative look, which Eliot tried to ignore, before speaking again. "Did you two have an argument last night?" she asked.

"No," he responded, a touch too quickly, his gaze snapping to hers. They had certainly done a lot of things the night before, but arguing had not been one of them. "Why would you think that?"

"You're a little… tense," Sophie said, diplomatically. "In a way you haven't been since you and Parker had that fight a couple months ago."

"That wasn't a fight," Eliot denied reflexively, as he turned his attention back to watching the coffee maker drip. "It was just a… a misunderstanding."

"Oh right, my mistake," she said dryly, sipping her tea.

Eliot ignored her in favor of doctoring his cup of coffee just the way he liked it.

"Perhaps she just went home," Sophie suggested with a shrug, after a few moments. "You're basically all better, Eliot," she pointed out. "You don't really need her help around the house anymore.

"Yeah, maybe," Eliot said into his mug, clearly not believing the words coming out of his mouth for a moment. But not about to explain to Sophie why we knew that wasn't the case.

"What's going on?" Nate asked coming down the spiral staircase, reading the mood in the room.

"Little Bo Peep over there lost his sheep," Hardison said.

"Dammit, Hardison!" Eliot exploded. "Enough with the nursery rhyme sheep already!"

Nate wasn't even going to ask. "Parker?" he asked instead, realizing she was the only one missing. "Where is she?"

"That's the question," Sophie replied.

"Eliot, she's not with you?" Nate asked.

"Would we be having this conversation if she was?" Eliot retorted sharply, starting to wish he was anywhere but here.

"Has anyone, I don't know… called her?" Nate asked sarcastically, as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot Eliot had made.

Nate, Sophie and Hardison all looked at Eliot, clearly expecting him to reach for his cell phone, but he simply crossed his arms over his chest and stared right back. He refused to be the one to call her. The way he saw it was, if she wanted to talk to him, she wouldn't have left. The stare-off continued until Hardison rolled his eyes and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

"I guess _I'll_ call her then," he said, ignoring the way everyone was watching him while he dialed the phone. "It went straight to voicemail." His fingers flew over his phone, "She must have popped the battery, because I can't track her GPS, but the last place it pinged was…."

"Was _where_?" Eliot prompted impatiently, when Hardison trailed off.

"Was at JFK."

"She's in New York?" Sophie asked.

"Well, she was as of 5:32 am."

A deep frown settled over Eliot's face as he did the math of how soon she must have left after he had fallen asleep.

"Is she still in New York?"

"No way to tell," Hardison admitted. "From there, she could have hopped a flight to anywhere in the world."

"No, she'll still be in New York," Nate said, in what the others considered his 'mastermind' tone. "If she wanted to fly international, she could have done that from Logan. And if she didn't want us to know where she was, she would have ditched her phone before she ever left Boston. If there is anything that Parker knows how to do, it's disappear."

Eliot glowered darkly, knowing it was true.

"What is she doing in New York?" Hardison asked, since Nate seemed to have all the answers.

"I suspect if she wanted us to know, she would have left her phone on," he answered, taking a sip of his coffee. Nate wasn't overly concerned. With Eliot still recovering, he didn't have any jobs currently lined up, so it was a good time for her to go on one of her walkabouts. "It's Parker. She'll turn back up. She always does."

"She was telling me last week that MOMA just revamped their security system," Sophie mused. "That's something she'd want to check out."

"Yeah," Hardison shrugged. "I guess after these last few weeks, the girl certainly deserves a vacation."

"A vacation from what?" Eliot snapped irritably. "From me? Is that what you're sayin'?"

"I.. uh… what I mean is..." Hardison stuttered. That was kind of what he'd said, but the murderous look on Eliot's face made him want to take it back.

"I think what Hardison means, is that Parker's just not used to putting other people's needs above her own," Sophie said delicately. "And after being so responsible for over a month, it's only natural that she'd want to let off some steam."

"Whatever," Eliot grumbled before stalking out of the loft, not wanting to be there anymore.

"Well," Sophie said lightly, after the front door slammed closed, "this is going to be interesting."

Out in the hallway, Eliot was at a loss. He didn't want to go home to his empty house, filled with reminders of the woman who'd left him that morning without so much as a goodbye. But he couldn't really go back to the loft after he'd just stormed out so dramatically.

It was Wednesday, which meant the farmers' market was currently under way, but that too would only bring reminders of Parker at every turn.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, using all his years of training to try to find his center.

He had limited success when the skin under his cast started itching like crazy. Opening his eyes he looked down at his cast-covered arm. After more than a month of wear and tear, most of the intricate silver designs Parker had laid over the black fiberglass had worn and faded. But looking at it now, all he could see were the quiet hours she had spent with his hand in her lap, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated, turning his basic black cast into a work of art in its own right.

He knew what he wanted to do.

When Eliot showed back up at the loft forty-five minutes later, he was looking slightly calmer. But he was also carrying a hacksaw, which garnered everyone's attention.

"You know, doctors have specific tools to do that," Nate mentioned, when Eliot sat down and immediately set about removing the fiberglass by sawing through it.

"This works," Eliot replied gruffly, not looking up from what he was doing.

"Are you sure it's even ready to come off?" Hardison asked, looking concerned. "The doc said six to _eight_ weeks, before your arm was fully healed. Shouldn't you get it x-rayed again, check on the healing progress and all that, before removing the cast?"

"Nope," he said shortly.

In fact, under normal circumstances he would have taken the cast off already. If he was really being honest with himself, he'd only left it on this long because it had given him a physically visible excuse, as flimsy as it was, to have Parker at home with him full-time. Even though he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself at this point, and they both knew it.

"This doesn't have anything to do with Parker's leaving does it?" Sophie asked, joining in on the concern.

Eliot's rhythm with the saw faltered for just a moment at Sophie's question, thinking that perhaps the grifter had managed to read his thoughts. He wouldn't have put it past her.

"Because if you still need a hand with anything because of your cast, you know that all you need to do is ask," she continued.

"Of course not," Eliot denied immediately, although not as snappy with Sophie as he had been with Nate and Hardison. "We can't just all sit around here, staring at each other, forever. I need the cast off so I can start working out properly again. That way I can get back into shape and we can get back to work. "

"You mean we can start working, once Parker gets back, right?" Nate asked, one eyebrow arched, the question clearly loaded. It was obvious to him that Eliot knew more about the reasoning behind Parker's exodus from the city than he was willing to admit.

"Of course I mean once Parker gets back," Eliot replied through grit teeth, as he picked up the screwdriver he'd also brought upstairs to try to pry the cast open. He wished they had a job now; he really wanted to hit someone.

"Well, if we can't do anything until Parker gets back, this is the perfect time for the new episode of Doctor Who that I downloaded last night," Hardison said, cheerfully.

Eliot swore at Hardison's statement and then swore again when he cracked the cast open, and the screwdriver slipped jabbing the sensitive skin of his forearm.

"Dammit, Hardison!"

* * *

A/N ::pokes head out:: don't hate me? I know this probably wasn't the morning after you were all hoping for, but we gotta have a little drama right? But we're in the home stretch now, just three more chapters to go, so let me know what you guys thought!


	14. Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

A/N **IMPORTANT NOTE please read!** Okay before we get started, this is now an M rated story. HOWEVER once I upped the rating the hit count dropped dramatically, my guess is that's because ffn's default for the category page doesn't include M rating so I'm assuming people missed the last chapter... SO! I am changing the rating back to T for a couple of days to give people a chance to hopefully see this note, and remind people to either change the search criteria or to just subscribe to this story so you get the email reminders that I've posted. And in a few day's I'll up it back up to M...

Okay that out of the way I also need to thank Alexandra926 who really co-wrote this chapter with me when I had hit the wall and just couldn't finish it... alright that's all I have to say so I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

Eliot knew that he was pushing himself too hard. His right arm screamed with every connected punch and his left shoulder was on fire. But he didn't lighten up his assault against the punching bag for a second. The pain he was feeling now was tangible, grounding, a distraction from the hollow ache in his chest that had been a constant presence for the last week. There was also the hope that if he managed to push his body past the point of exhaustion he might actually be able to sleep tonight. Something that had eluded him since Parker had left, as he found that he was no longer accustomed to sleeping alone.

He wasn't even sure how long he had been at it, when he was interrupted by the ringing of his cell phone. He swiped it up from where he'd left it on his weight bench, unable to stop the disappointed frown from crossing his face when he saw it wasn't the teammate he was hoping it would be.

"What, Hardison?" he answered gruffly.

"You okay, man?" the hacker asked from the other end of the line. "You sound outta breath. You didn't get jumped by a band of roving ninjas, did ya?"

"A band of roving _what_?" Eliot shook his head at the phone. "No, I'm working out."

"Oh, okay. That's good. Because I was thinking that we-"

"No," Eliot interrupted.

"You don't even know what I'm gonna say."

"Whatever you're gonna suggest, it's a no," he reiterated, picking up his water bottle and tipping it back.

Hardison was undeterred. "There's this new bar-"

"No."

"-that's supposed to be the new hot spot-"

"No."

"-and we haven't had bro night in months-"

"No."

"Come on, man," Hardison wheedled. "You been in a funk all week. You need to get out somewhere that isn't home or Nate's."

Eliot knew that Hardison was right, but he wasn't one to give in so easily. "I'm busy."

"Doin' what?" Hardison challenged. "Working out like you've been doing all week? Staring at the walls? Brooding?"

Eliot pinched the bridge of his nose. Yes, those were his plans, he didn't see how that was any of Hardison's business. "Dammit, Hardison," he muttered into the phone, his resolve clearly weakening.

"C'mon, it's ladies night at the bar and I need my wingman. First round's on me."

"Fine," he ground out, relenting. "What time do you wanna meet up? I still have to shower," Eliot reminded him.

"No rush, no rush. Just uh, maybe…" Hardison hesitated.

"What is it?"

"Maybe you could let me in, and I'll wait for you to get ready?" he asked hopefully.

"Dammit, Hardison!" Eliot exclaimed, before hanging up the phone.

Storming to the front door, he whipped it open to find the younger man casually leaning against the wall opposite, cell still in hand and an unrepentant grin on his face. Eliot just shook his head, and turned on his heel to head back towards his shower, leaving Hardison to let himself in, and shut the door behind him.

He took a perfunctory shower, not even giving the hot water time to soothe his aching muscles. Drying off efficiently, he ran a blow dryer through his hair just long enough that it wasn't dripping before pulling it back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. Stepping into his closet, he pulled on the first clean pair of jeans he found and snatched a random shirt off the nearest hanger. He was halfway through buttoning the blue chambray shirt, when he flashed on how Parker had teased him about the color making his eyes pop. Pulling the shirt back over his head, he exchanged it for a red one.

Slipping on his boots and a jacket, he headed back out to the living room where Hardison was waiting for him.

"Are you read- Dammit, Hardison!" he exploded. The hacker looked up at him like a deer caught in headlights, Parker's sketchbook which she had left abandoned on the coffee table, in his hands. "That's not yours," he barked, snatching it out of his grasp. "Didn't your Nana teach you it's rude to snoop?"

"In case you hadn't noticed, snooping is kinda what I do for a living," Hardison pointed out.

"Yeah, with the marks, not with each other," Eliot retorted, replacing the sketchbook where Parker had left it the last time she used it. "If she wanted us to see them, she would show them to us."

"Whoa, hold up. You saying you've never taken a peek?" Hardison asked, disbelievingly. "Not once?"

"No," Eliot confirmed. "Because I have respect. If she wants to share something, she rips it out," he explained.

"And then you put it on the fridge," Hardison said, with a knowing smirk.

"Are we going or not?" Eliot asked gruffly, ignoring his comment completely.

"Yeah yeah, let's go, before you change your mind," Hardison said, leading the way out of the condo. "You should really take a look in that book though."

xXxXxXx

Eliot would never tell him so, but standing at the bar with a drink in his hand, he was thinking that Hardison hadn't done too bad this time. The atmosphere in the bar was trendier than he personally prefered, which was to be expected from a Hardison pick, but the beer was cold and the music wasn't terrible, so it had that much going for it, at least.

He was only half listening to Hardison talk about some new movie he was excited to see, when something distracted the hacker mid-sentence.

"Crazy hot redhead, on your six," Hardison said, conspiratorially. "She keeps looking over here. Definitely warm for your form."

" _Warm_ for my _form_ ," Eliot repeated, looking pained. "Really? What's wrong with you man?"

"Yeah, really."

Eliot rolled his eyes, but a quick glance in the mirror behind the bar showed him exactly what the hacker was talking about. She was good looking, Hardison wasn't wrong about that. Short and stacked in all the right places, with dark red hair and light brown eyes that kept flicking in his direction every few minutes.

"I'm going to go… to the bathroom," Hardison announced, draining the last of his beer and leaving the empty bottle on the bartop.

Eliot shook his head at the obvious attempt to give him some space to do his thing, and was about to tell him it wasn't necessary, but Hardison was already gone. Turning around to face the rest of the room, leaning his elbows against the bar, he began a slow survey of the other patrons. And sure enough, when he got to the redhead, she was looking right back at him. Almost reflexively, he gave her that grin that was more smirk than smile and a quick wink before taking a long drag of his beer, holding eye contact.

 _Five... four… three… two… one…_

And there she was, crossing the room to approach him.

Nice to know that he still had it.

"Hi, I'm Becca."

"Hey there, Becca," he said, letting his accent thicken. "I'm Eliot. Lemme buy you a drink."

It was so easy, to fall into the flirtatious give-and-take that went into picking up a stranger at a bar. He wouldn't lie and say that the attention wasn't a balm to his bruised male ego and he couldn't help but think this might be exactly what he needed right now. Something to take his mind off of what had happened the week before. Something easy. Uncomplicated. Meaningless.

It had been a long time since he had last looked for a night of company. Longer than he could remember, really. A part of him couldn't help but wonder if that was the reason why he seemed to be so hung up on what happened with Parker. Maybe the only reason why he was so fixated on it, was because she was the first woman he'd slept with in months. The thought didn't quite ring true, but he pushed it aside in favor for paying attention to the woman in front of him, who couldn't be any more different than the one who'd left him cold.

"Want to take this conversation somewhere… a little more private?" Becca asked, the smirk on her face and the gleam in her eyes spelling out her intentions.

He almost agreed on reflex, but the words died on his lips.

Despite the fact that he didn't owe Parker anything, and despite the fact that she was the one who'd left, even entertaining the thought of going home with someone else tasted like betrayal on the back of his tongue. And then he realized he didn't _want_ something easy, uncomplicated and meaningless.

He wanted something that took the extra effort.

Something that was a little messy.

Something that was worth it.

He wanted Parker.

The realization of why he'd stopped trolling for one night stands all those months ago hit him like a freight train. Even before Parker had started spending the night regularly, he had wanted to be home in the evenings, on the off chance she chose to come over. He would rather spend a night on the couch with Parker, bickering over what to watch on TV, than in a bar looking for a sure thing to go home with at the end of the night.

"I'm sorry, Becca," Eliot apologized, realizing he had zero desire to go home with this woman he just met. "You're a beautiful woman, and any guy would be lucky to get your attention, but I just can't."

She gave him a long, evaluative look, before giving him a knowing smile. "I hope that, whoever she is, she knows how lucky she is," Becca said, taking the rejection in good humor. "It was nice talking to you, Eliot. Thanks for the drink."

Before he could even reply, she had drifted back towards her friends. He shook his head at himself and quickly scanned the bar for Hardison, spotting the hacker at a table in the back, having found a girl of his own to talk to. Easily weaving through the crowd, he made his way towards his friend.

"Hey, don't let me interrupt," Eliot said, having to tap Hardison's shoulder to get his attention. He really needed to work with him on his situational awareness. "I just wanted to let you know I'm taking off."

He was willing to leave it at that, but Hardison quickly excused himself, got up and stepped just out of hearing distance from the table.

"You leaving with the redhead?"

"Nah. She offered, but I sent her back to her friends," he replied, gesturing with his chin.

Hardison was visibly surprised. "Dude, what the hell? That girl was _fine as hell_. I ain't never seen you turn away action like that."

Eliot just shrugged. "I just wasn't feeling it." He couldn't help but think that he saw some measure of approval in the other man's eyes, despite the fact that Hardison had been the one who'd dragged him out to the bar, and pushed him in the redhead's direction. "Anyways, I just came over to tell you I'm gonna get going."

"I drove," Hardison reminded him.

"Yeah, I know. We're only a couple miles from my place, I'm gonna walk." He could use the time to clear his head, and if he was really lucky, maybe someone would try to mug him on his way home.

"Alright man, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow." He held out his hand for their customary two slaps and a fist bump.

He'd only made it a few steps down the sidewalk before Hardison came bursting out the door behind him.

"She's gonna come back!"

"What are you talking about?" Eliot asked, turning back around to face the other man.

"Parker. She's still in New York, you know."

"What?" He didn't know what that had to do with anything.

"Her phone's GPS pings once a day," Hardison informed him with a shrug. "I figure it's her way of keeping in touch, without keeping in touch. She wouldn't bother if she wasn't planning on coming back. Last night it was at Central Park Zoo," he added. "A little weird since it was at two in the morning, but that's Parker for ya."

"They don't have wombats at that zoo, do they?" Eliot asked, remembering a long ago conversation, with no small amount of concern.

" _Wombats_?" Hardison repeated, sure he couldn't have heard that correctly. "What does that have to do…? Uh, no? I don't think so?"

"Then there's probably nothing to worry about," Eliot said, more to himself than anything. "You better get back inside before the girl you were talking to thinks you ditched her," he added. "I'll see you later, Hardison."

Hardison watched him walk away a way for a moment, before calling at his retreating back. "She's gonna come back! And I'm telling ya, you should really look at that sketchbook!"

Eliot kept walking.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Sitting back on his heels, Eliot shoved the last bit of dead plant material into a garbage bag as he finished cleaning out the last raised bed. He'd spent all morning and a great deal of the afternoon, readying the outdoor portion of his rooftop garden for winter, the latest item on his agenda in his quest to stay to busy and keep his mind off things these last few weeks.

Rising to his feet, he stretched out his back, sore from being hunched over so long, before making his way over to the greenhouse to clean up and put away his tools for the day. Clean up taken care of, he turned to leave when a something caught his eye. Hanging from the corner of the arugula planter, was Parker's sunhat, abandoned by its owner.

Picking up the straw monstrosity, he trailed his fingertips over the brim, his thoughts wandering back to the day he'd gotten the garden ready for spring, and all the unexpected ways his life had changed since then.

Of course keeping busy would work much better if everything he did, didn't remind him of what he was trying to forget.

He hadn't even realized Parker had become such a presence in every facet of his life until she was gone, leaving a gaping hole in the space she used to fill. He couldn't work out without glancing at the pull-up bar, expecting her to be hanging from it. He couldn't make a cup of coffee without reaching past her favorite box of cereal to grab the beans from the pantry. When he was cooking, he had to resist the urge to narrate what he was doing, not so much because he expected Parker to learn how to cook but because as she'd once told him, she liked the way he explained things. He couldn't look for something to watch on TV without his traitorous brain pointing out all the shows Parker would want to watch. He didn't even have going to bed as a refuge anymore, since the king sized bed that he used to view as an indulgent luxury now felt too big and empty for one person.

With a heavy sigh, he replaced the hat where he found it and left to go back downstairs, grabbing the trash bag on his way out.

He was pushing the black plastic bag down the garbage chute when he was hit by yet another reminder of Parker, since apparently, not even taking the trash out was safe. He wanted to ignore the thought that had just popped into his mind, but now that it was there, there was no going back.

"Dammit," he growled at himself, already heading to the stairs so he could head down to the fourth floor.

Having reached his destination, Eliot was seriously questioning his life choices even as he reached out and knocked on the door.

"Just a minute!" he heard a voice call out from the other side of the door. After a few moments the door opened revealing all five feet, two inches of his octogenarian neighbor, dressed head-to-toe in a tracksuit in the same shade of pink as the poodle yapping at her feet. "Pardon the wait dear, these old bones don't move as fast as they used to."

"It was no trouble," he quickly assured her. "Hi, you don't actually know me, but I'm Eliot. I live-"

"I know who you are," Miss Angelika interrupted before he could finish. "You're Parker's young man."

Eliot's eyes widened slightly. "I don't know if I would say that, ma'am."

"Which part do you disagree with?" she asked, her eyes swirling with amusement.

That he was still a young man. That he was Parker's. Either. Both. Neither. What did it matter now, anyway?

He chose an tight, enigmatic smile, and offered no answer at all.

Unperturbed, Angelika prattled on, leading him further into the apartment. Eliot took in his surroundings while the poodle sniffed at his feet suspiciously. At a first cursory glance, the apartment appeared cluttered, but looking a little deeper it was obvious that she had surrounded herself with mementos of a life well-lived. Photos, posters, and of course the infamous white ostrich feather fans, lined the walls. Keepsakes, tchotchkes, and souvenirs from all over the world were collected on every flat surface in the room. A set of ornate matryoshka dolls from Russia, a jar of sea shells nestled in pure white sand, a Japanese bonsai tree made of jade and copper, an antique music box with an intricate inlaid wood cover. Eliot had no doubts that each of these items came with a story.

"Dear Parker mentioned that you'd been in an accident," she noted, looking down at his arm, now minus its cast. "Are you feeling all better now?"

Eliot's full attention snapped back to the old lady who seemed to know way too much for his liking. From the glint in her eye, he imagined that she already knew everything there was to know. Something in his chest clenched as he wondered what exactly Parker had told her on their little visits.

"I'm much better," he said, unconsciously rubbing the healed-over bullet wound on his shoulder. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Ma'am? I don't think I've ever been considered proper enough to warrant anyone calling me _ma'am_ ," she laughed, sitting down in an overstuffed armchair and gesturing for Eliot to join her on the sofa directly across. "Call me Miss Angelika like everyone else does, my dear."

"Miss Angelika," he repeated agreeably, sitting where he was told before realizing he should get to the reason he'd knocked on her door in the first place. Saying her name still hurt, but he plowed ahead with it anyway. "Parker mentioned that your arthritis acts up, and that she takes your trash out for you?" He glanced around, but didn't see two weeks of garbage bags piled up anywhere.

For a moment the traitorous idea that Parker was actually in town and had taken care of it herself, but still avoided seeing him, crossed his mind. But then he remembered Hardison's assurance that her phone was still pinging from New York once a day.

"I'd be happy to help you with it," he continued, "while Parker is, um..." he cleared his throat and tried to decide what to say. "Out of town," he finished lamely.

"Out of town?" she repeated, looking at him. "Is that right?"

Eliot knew that Sophie would have been annoyed with the way that he glanced away to the left. An obvious tell, clearly showing that he wasn't telling the whole truth. Even the poodle who was staring up at him with judgemental eyes, could tell he was full of shit.

"She left," he blurted out. "She just... left."

Angelika just sat back further in her chair, waiting for him to continue.

"Two weeks ago today."

"Parker was here visiting two weeks ago today," Angelika said, thinking that the younger woman hadn't given any indications that she was planning on leaving when she'd seen her last.

"I know," Eliot sighed, running his hands through his hair, pushing it back away from his face. "People are like jigsaw puzzles, right?"

At that, her eyes widened, and the beginnings of a smile played around the corners of her mouth. "She told you about that?"

"Yeah, it was still very much on her mind when she came upstairs," he said distractedly, half-lost in the memories of that night. "She even asked me to give her one of _my_ puzzle pieces-"

"Oh, she _did_ , did she?" Miss Angelika seemed to read volumes into _that_ , her eyebrows raised, eyes bright and alert.

Eliot couldn't seem to help himself from continuing.

"She did. And then…" he trailed off, not sure if he could even continue along with this train of thought. His chest felt tight, and he muttered, "and now she's gone."

"Pompadour!" Miss Angelika scolded.

Eliot glanced down to find that the pink poodle was chewing on his shoelaces. Before he could do anything about it, Miss Angelika had scooped her up and carried the little dog under her arm, into the kitchen, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

She returned, in due time, with two cups of tea. She set one of them down in front of Eliot with a clink, before retaking her own seat.

"You know what you are?" she asked him, as she settled in her chair.

He stopped, mid-sip. Was that a trick question?

He could identify several things that he _used_ to be. But those weren't who he was anymore. It was easy for him to identify where his loyalties lay; harder to define what exactly he _was_.

His thoughts were still spinning, when Angelika spoke again.

"You, my dear, are a tree," she informed him, in her raspy voice .

"What? I'm a… huh?" He jerked his head up to look at her. "I'm a tree?" Was that supposed to be a compliment? An insult?

"A tree," she repeated, nodding. "No doubt about it."

"What does that even, I mean, I don't know, a _tree_?"

"You remind me of Jerry, you know. He was a tree, too."

She's crazy, Eliot thought. Completely off her rocker. No wonder she and Parker got on so well. "Who's Jerry?" he asked instead.

"He was my husband."

 _Was._ "I'm… sorry," he managed. "For your loss."

"Thank you, dear," she smiled. "He was a military man, too."

"Is that what Parker told you? That I'm in the military?"

"Oh, she didn't need to," Angelika said breezily. "I can tell." She pointed to a framed black and white picture on the wall behind him, and Eliot twisted in his seat to look at it. It was an old picture of Angelika as a cabaret performer, with her two huge feathered fans. "I was a performer, you know. A dancer."

"Right, in New York," he nodded, turning back around. "Parker said you performed for the troops?"

"I knew a lot of military men," she chuckled. "And they were all different, bless them, but they were all the same, too."

She had produced a different picture now, a stern-looking uniformed man, from a marble-topped end table.

"Is that how you met?" he asked as he took the framed photo, curious in spite of himself. "He saw you performing?"

"Oh, no!" she laughed. "Jerry didn't much care for my dancing. He said that I should… what was it that he used to say? That I should leave more to the men's imaginations?" She laughed again. "He called it protective, I called it jealous."

From the picture, it was evident that Miss Angelika the Fan Dancer had not left much to the imagination at all, and Eliot chuckled, too.

"Can't say that I wouldn't have felt the same way," he ventured, as he handed her the photo back, imagining if the woman he loved had chosen such a visible occupation. He'd wanted to bash some heads in when the pizza delivery guy had seen Parker dripping wet, fresh out of the shower that one time and that was hardly the same thing.

"Oh, Jerry and I were just _polar_ opposites!" Angelika continued, reminiscing. Her eyes were far away, as she looked at the picture of Jerry, handsome and unsmiling from the picture frame. "We didn't have a _single_ thing in common! He was so quiet and reserved, and I was so… well..." She gestured back to the picture on the wall, her younger counterpart smiling seductively on stage.

" _Not_ reserved?" he supplied with a smirk.

She smiled at the understatement.

"He was from a small town, I was from the big city. He liked to read and enjoyed his peace and quiet. I wanted to listen to music and dance all night."

Unbidden, thoughts of Parker sprang to mind again, as he tried to think what exactly the two of _them_ had in common, other than Leverage and, apparently, a mutual attraction that they'd never acted on until that last night.

"Jerry came from a big family, surrounded with brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins. And me, I came from nobody and nothing. I would have been a foster child like Parker except for back then there were orphanages, instead."

Something else that they had in common, Eliot mused, taking another sip of his tea.

 _What the hell am I drinking?_ He glanced down at the slightly amber liquid that tasted nothing like any kind of tea he'd ever had, before realizing that it was the peppermint tea that Parker had talked so much about. Complete with mini candy cane. What Parker had neglected to mention though, was the schnapps.

"All Jerry's family warned him that it would never last!" She laughed at the thought, obviously still relishing how wrong they'd been. "Every last one of them thought that marrying me was the biggest mistake that Jerry had ever made. That I was some kind of wild backlash to his enlistment. Like I was just his last hurrah before marching off to war."

"Did he go overseas?" Eliot asked, curious.

"Oh, yes," she nodded. "And one war wasn't enough for my Jerry, either. After World War II ended, he enlisted again to fight in the Philippines, during their liberation. He was a protector. He loved freedom and wanted it for everyone in the world." She nodded again, emphatically. "After that, he was in Red China, helping to flush out the Soviets, and then the Japanese."

Eliot had heard about that particular operation, actually; it was legendary.

"Jerry served with the G-3?" he asked impressed, looking at the portrait again.

"Why, yes! That's right! He did, right up until the end."

"Must have been quite a guy," Eliot smiled.

"Oh, he was, my dear. He certainly was. Very brave. He must have been, if he married _me_ ," she laughed, self-deprecatingly. "After the first few years, everyone thought he would… how to put it? Bring me to heel," she smirked. "Tame me. Make a good little housewife out of the showgirl he'd married."

"I'm guessing that didn't happen?" Eliot smirked.

"They didn't know Jerry as well as they thought," she mused. "He loved freedom. Even mine. _Especially_ mine. He wanted me to fly free." She patted the portrait, lovingly, smiling down at Jerry. "He always said that I was his beautiful songbird. And that my wings should never be clipped."

Eliot considered that for a minute.

"Most men," she continued, "would have wanted to do exactly that. They would have wanted to keep me home, keep me safe. _Keep_ me." She frowned. "But to _keep_ me… that would have been to kill me, kill my spirit," she confided. "I would have been a bird in a cage. A prisoner. Jerry understood that, though. He was different from the rest."

"Once in a lifetime?" He looked at his hands. This was hitting closer to home than he wanted to admit.

She nodded.

"I haven't been a nun since I lost him," she admitted. "I've taken other lovers over the years. I spent the late sixties out in California," she added, making Eliot chuckle, he could only imagine what this woman had gotten herself into during the summer of love.

"But my Jerry…" she continued, wistfully. "He was my mighty oak. My safe haven, my shelter from the storm. My tree. He was a once in a lifetime sort of partner," she paused, thinking for a moment. "His roots ran deep. He was the only man I've ever known that knew how to keep me safe _and_ keep me free."

"You made each other happy?"

"So very much," she affirmed.

 _You're a tree,_ she'd said. Was he Parker's tree? It could it be that simple. Could it?

"Was he still with the G-3 when they fought in Korea?" he asked with a sense of foreboding, hoping for Jerry's sake and hers, that he hadn't been.

She sighed as she reverently replaced the photo back in its place of honor.

"He loved a challenge," she nodded at his portrait. "He saved a lot of lives."

Eliot was silent, as he sipped the last of his drink.

"Thank you," he said, as he set his teacup down. "If you ever need anything, anything at all, you'll call me, right?" he asked, borrowing a pencil from the crystal bowl on an end table and wrote his phone number on a scrap of paper for her. "Can I get your trash down to the chute for you?"

"Thank _you_ , dear," she smiled at him.

Had he ruined things forever? Taken away Parker's safe place, by trying to make their friendship into something that it hadn't ever been meant to be? Was she alone now, flying free?

Miss Angelika patted him on the shoulder as they said their goodbyes.

"Come back and talk with me any time," she said. "Bring Parker, too."

"I don't know if she's coming back," he admitted. "I think I screwed things up pretty bad."

"It's not over til it's over," she said, enigmatically before closing the door behind him.

Eliot had a lot to think about as he headed down the hall with the garbage.

What if it _was_ over?

* * *

A/N Emo Eliot is emo right? I'll love you forever if you let me know what you think!


	15. This House Just Ain't No Home

A/N Hello hello everyone! Happy Monday and welcome back! We're getting close to the end now... so I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

Nate ignored the 'closed' sign on the door to McRory's and let himself into the bar.

"Hey Nate," Cora greeted, putting the last chair up on a table before crossing over to him. "Thanks for coming down," she said quietly, "I've gotta lock up and I didn't know what else to do."

"You did the right thing calling me," he assured her.

When he'd first picked up the phone to find Cora on the other end of the line, telling him that he needed to come do something about Eliot because he was drunk in the bar, Nate's heart had leapt into his throat. One, because Eliot didn't _get_ drunk. The hitter prized control over all things, it was a fundamental facet of his personality. In all the years he'd known him, he had only seen Eliot allow himself the slightest buzz, and even that was only when he was surrounded only by his teammates in a controlled environment. Never alone and in a public bar no less. And two, because of point one, he didn't know what kind of drunk the younger man was. Even intoxicated, Nate was sure there wouldn't be a whole lot any of them could do if he chose to get belligerent. But Cora assured him that wasn't the case, and that she was mainly calling Nate because she didn't think Eliot should be alone and while she had to close the bar, she didn't want to just kick him out.

Looking over Cora's shoulder, he spotted Eliot easily in the otherwise empty bar. He was sitting in the corner booth, with his back against the wall, a single glass and a two thirds empty bottle sitting in front of him.

"Has he been there all night?" he asked lowly.

"Yeah," Cora confirmed. "Came in 'bout nine I guess, asked for a drink and told me to leave the bottle. Hasn't said a word since and he's just scared off anyone who's gotten too close with that glare of his."

"Alright, I'll take care of this," he sighed. "Why don't you go on home. I'll lock up."

"Thanks Nate," she said gratefully, pulling the keys out of her pocket and handing them over. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Nate saw the redhead to the door, turning the lock behind her, before going to deal with his drunken teammate. He got the same glare that everyone else must have gotten when he slid into the booth opposite the hitter, but he'd long since become immune to that particular look.

"What are you doing here?" Eliot asked gruffly.

"Well, you're singing my song," Nate said, nodding at the bottle he'd steadily been working his way through. "I wanted to make sure you're not stealing my act."

"No, you drink Irish whiskey, this is Kentucky bourbon," Eliot replied, as if that made all the difference.

His voice was strong and steady, and at first glance Nate might not have even realized that Eliot was as drunk as he was, except for the way the hitter obviously had to struggle to focus his eyes on the mastermind.

"I'm adaptable," Nate shrugged, reaching across the table and taking a swig straight from the bottle, setting it back down out of Eliot's easy reach. Nate watched Eliot stare at the full glass still cradled between his hands for a few minutes before speaking again. "We've barely seen you this week, and then I get a call from Cora." Eliot didn't even bother to acknowledge that he'd spoken, so Nate tried coming from a different angle. "Do you want to tell me what happened with you and Parker?"

Eliot head shot up so fast, Nate would be surprised if it hadn't made him dizzy. The mask the hitter normally wore to conceal his emotions was gone. "Why would you think something happened between me and Parker?"

"She's been gone for three weeks now and you're getting drunk, alone in a bar," Nate pointed out. "It's a pretty straight line to draw between those two points."

There was also the fact that while Eliot had been doing an admirable job of pretending that things were business as usual, anyone who really knew him could see the dark cloud that had surrounded him since Parker's abrupt departure. It went far beyond his normal surly facade.

"I fucked up, Nate," Eliot sighed, going back to staring into his glass as though it held all the answers. "I fucked everything up."

"What happened?" he asked, taking another swig from the bottle. Nate usually tried not to get involved in the personal lives of his crew, but this was obviously affecting the team, what with his thief's disappearance, and his hitter an absolute mess.

"I slept with Parker," he confessed, with an honesty he wouldn't have dared if he was sober.

When Nate didn't respond right away, Eliot looked up, expecting to see condemnation in the other man's face. Instead, he found only confusion.

"And…?" Nate said leadingly.

"What do you mean, _and_?" Eliot retorted irritably. "I slept with Parker and she took off, Nate. End of story. And I don't mean that she didn't stay for breakfast. She left the damn _state_."

"Wait, you mean for the _first_ time?" Nate asked, genuinely surprised.

"Yes, for the first time!" Eliot exclaimed. "What did you think?"

"Honestly," Nate admitted, "I thought you two had been together for a while."

"What? No! Why would you think that?!"

How could he not? Was what Nate wanted to say, but he chose to be more diplomatic about it. "You have to admit, you two have been… closer, for months now. I noticed that things were changing, but after the way Parker reacted when you got hurt, and seeing you two together at your place..." he shrugged, unapologetic. "I just assumed."

"Well, we're not. _Were_ not... _are_ not?" Eliot tilted his head, clearly having confused himself. "I don't know. I'm drunk," he admitted, taking another swig from his glass.

"My mistake, then," Nate said blandly.

"I never asked for this!" Eliot said explosively, as though Nate had made some kind of accusation. "I have a rule; you don't get involved with people you work with. It _always_ ends messy," he explained, jabbing hard at the wooden table top with one finger to punctuate his point. "It's a good rule! But she just… _wormed_ her way in there before I even noticed what was happening. Do you have any idea how this even started?"

Nate didn't and he wasn't sure he wanted to, but Eliot was on a roll, the alcohol in his system loosening his reticent tongue.

" _Dinner_ , that's it. She would show up looking to be fed every couple weeks, and the next thing I know she's all but moved in and I don't even know how it happened. Yet for some reason, I don't care! I should have cared. Why didn't I care?!" he exclaimed, gesturing broadly. "I'll tell you why... I'm the frog and she's the boiling pot of water that I didn't have the sense to jump out of until it was already too late. And now she's gone, but I can't even go home because she's still everywhere I look, and in everything I touch, and her absence is so loud it hurts."

"I always knew there was a romantic poet underneath there, somewhere," Nate said, hiding his amused smirk behind taking another drink from the bottle. It wasn't funny, not really, considering the situation, but he never would have figured Eliot Spencer to be a talky drunk.

"What the hell, man!" Eliot exclaimed, both appalled and offended. "No. I'm not. Take that back. Why would you even say that?"

"My apologies. I take it back," Nate placated, not sorry at all. "You were talking about what happened with Parker," he said leadingly, getting him back on track. "Why'd she leave?"

Eliot threw his hands up. "I don't know why she left! I was following _her_ lead this whole time, before I even realized we were going somewhere. When it happened, it seemed to me like it was an inevitable conclusion, but I clearly misread the fucking signs somewhere because she's gone." He slumped back in the booth and threw back the last of his drink. "And now I'm fucked, and the team is fucked, and everything is just _fucked_."

Eliot seemed to have run out of steam so Nate figured it was his turn to say something.

"Do you want my advice?"

Eliot reached forward to grab the bottle from Nate's side of the table. "I don't know if you're qualified to give advice until you get your own shit together with what's going on between you and Sophie."

"There's nothing going on between me and Sophie," Nate countered.

"You're just proving my point, Ford," Eliot drawled, pouring another three fingers into the glass.

"Well, I'm going to tell you what I think."

"As long as you're not about to tell me that I'm a tree. I already heard that one last week."

"A tree?" Nate asked, honestly perplexed.

Eliot just waved a dismissive hand.

Nate knew when to let things go. "Why haven't you just gone to New York and found her yet?" he asked.

Eliot sighed and took another swing of his drink. He was silent long enough that Nate thought he might not answer. "I've thought about it," he finally admitted. "I probably think about it more than I don't."

"Then why haven't you?" Nate asked, genuinely curious. "Is it a pride thing?"

Eliot sighed heavily, while pride might have been a contributing factor he could have swallowed it down, had it been the only one. But it was more complicated than that. Thoughts of songbirds dying in cages crossed his mind.

"She's left a whole trail of breadcrumbs to follow, and you're the retrieval specialist," Nate continued when Eliot didn't respond immediately. "This is what you do best."

"As much as the idea of tracking her down, throwing her over my shoulder and bringing her home, is a tempting one…. _she left_ ," Eliot responded, as if Nate could have forgotten. "That was _her_ choice. I'm respecting that choice. I don't understand it, I don't like it, but I'm respecting it. I'm not going to force her to do anything she doesn't want to do. If she wants to come home, she knows where I am. Right where she left me..."

"Ever think that maybe she _wants_ you to come and get her?" Nate offered.

Eliot rolled his eyes. "Come on, Nate, you know Parker better than that. That's a Sophie move, the whole cat-and-mouse chase thing. Parker doesn't play games like that; they don't even occur to her. She went to New York because she _wanted_ two hundred miles between us," he said morosely. "She's already spooked. If I push it while she's still skittish, she's just going to bolt again. And who knows where she'd end up, or if she would bother letting us know where she's at next time."

He was right of course, horse metaphor that Parker would not appreciate notwithstanding, and Nate knew it.

The two men sat in silence while they finished the bottle and Nate knew that if his intention had been to try to cheer Eliot up, he'd done a piss poor job of it. But there was still one thing he could do tonight.

"Come on, let's go upstairs," Nate said, sliding out of the booth.

"Why?"

"Because you're in no condition to get yourself home, and I have a perfectly good couch you can sleep this off on." Lord knows he had slept on it enough times when he'd been too drunk to navigate the spiral staircase.

"I can get myself home just fine," Eliot insisted obstinately. But when he stood up for the first time in hours, and the whole world tilted for a moment under his feet, he reconsidered. "Upstairs is good too."

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

xXxXxXx

Eliot woke up with a pained groan, facedown on Nate's couch, in a pool of his own drool. It took him more than a few moments to realize that he hadn't fallen out of another third story window, but instead had the mother of all hangovers. It took even longer for him to disentangle himself from the blanket Nate must have tossed over him at some point so he could stumble to the bathroom.

After taking care of business, he popped a couple of Tylenol from the bottle in the medicine cabinet, before washing it down with an almost absurd amount of water that he drank straight from the tap, his dehydrated body screaming for more. Once he'd drank as much as he could stand, he washed his face before looking at himself in the mirror. He looked like hell, but that was hardly a surprise. He felt like he'd been hit by a car. No, scratch that. He'd been hit by cars on more than one occasion. Right now, he felt worse. There were several reasons why he didn't drink to excess, and this right here was right near the top of the list.

He was actually grateful that he'd slept in his boots, because now he wouldn't have to deal with trying to get them back on before he dragged himself home to rethink the life decisions that had brought him to this point.

Heading back out to the main room, he didn't even have the energy to be surprised by the fact that Sophie was sitting primly on the sofa he'd just vacated, the blanket he'd been using now folded neatly and draped over the back of the couch.

"Where'd you come from?" he asked gruffly.

Sophie didn't answer. "Coffee?" she offered instead, extending one of the two mugs she was holding in his direction.

"You're an angel," he said, taking the cup gratefully.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sophie asked, after he'd had a few minutes to let the caffeine hit his blood stream.

"My hangover? No, not really."

"Do you want to talk about Parker?" she clarified.

He knew what she'd meant. "No, I don't want to talk about that either," he said, taking another gulp of his coffee, wanting to finish the cup so he could leave. He should have known that Nate would call Sophie in as reinforcements. "I've done enough of that."

"I just thought you might want to talk to somebody who understands. Someone who knows what it's like," Sophie said gently.

"What what's like?" Eliot asked, his head too fuzzy to even begin trying to decipher her cryptic statements.

"What it's like to be in love with someone who can be… emotionally unpredictable."

It took all of Eliot's self-control not to spray his mouthful of coffee all over the floor, but it was a close thing. "Who said anything about _love_?"

Sophie gave him that look that always made him feel like she was looking right into his soul, and it was all he could do to not squirm under her scrutiny.

"I don't know if you're just lying to me, or to yourself as well," she said, taking a dainty sip from the mug in her hands. "But if you want to pretend that you would behave the way you have been the last few weeks, if you _didn't_ love Parker… well, I'm an actress, I've always been good at suspending disbelief."

Eliot's brow furrowed deeply, not quite sure how to respond to that.

"It doesn't matter what I feel," he grumbled, sidestepping the issue entirely. "She made her feelings pretty damn clear when she took off."

"Yes, she most certainly did at that," Sophie agreed, a knowing grin curling the corners of her mouth.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Eliot asked of her obviously loaded words.

"Come on, Eliot," she rolled her eyes. "You know Parker, probably better than anyone. She ran because she was scared. What is she most scared of?"

"Hairless cats, the Pillsbury Doughboy, and dolls that talk," he answered without hesitation.

"No- wait, _what_?" Sophie asked disbelievingly. " _The Pillsbury Doughboy_?"

"He creeps her out," he shrugged. There was a whole thing with a recurring dream that ended with her trapping him in the oven and watching him beat on the glass until he turned a golden brown. But that wasn't relevant at the moment. "It's a long story."

It took Sophie a minute to bounce back from that. "Her _feelings,_ Eliot," she said, getting the conversation back on track. "She's scared of her emotions. She never learned how to process them like everybody else. The stronger they are, the more they unnerve her."

Eliot just glared into the dregs of his coffee, obstinately ignoring the point Sophie was trying to make.

"It's clear to me, that she only left because she loves you," she said, simply.

"Would you stop saying that word," he huffed.

"What? Love?" Sophie asked, unable to resist teasing him a little. "What bothers you more to hear, that you love her or that she loves you?

" _Stop_ ," he repeated with a growl.

"Honestly," she tisked, amused. "Between the both of you, it's a miracle you two even managed to get this far."

"Damnit Sophie." He was too hungover to listen to this bullshit.

"My point is, is that Parker is just as pragmatic about sex as you usually are. If sleeping with you didn't mean anything to her, don't you think she would have just woken up and gone about her day like nothing had happened? Think about it."

Eliot didn't respond, but Sophie could tell that he was considering her words. Setting her empty mug on the coffee table, she stood and headed for the spiral staircase.

"Once she works through her feelings," she called over her shoulder, "she'll come home."

Eliot didn't want to think about it anymore. He wanted to go home, take a hot shower, and go back to bed for a couple hours. Setting his mug on the coffee table next to Sophie's, he stood to do just that.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

A month.

Four weeks.

Twenty-eight days.

No matter how Eliot sliced it, it had been a long time now, since Parker had disappeared into the night without a word. But he still wasn't used to her being gone. He'd thought he would have been by now. He also thought she would have come back before now too. He was wrong on both counts. He hated being wrong.

Sitting in his dimly lit home, he stared into the amber glass of bourbon cradled in his hands, while he meditated on the many ways he'd gone wrong in the last few months. He hadn't touched a drop since he'd overindulged the week before, which had resulted in an unfortunate over-share with Nate and the worst hangover he'd had since that time when he was sixteen, and he and his cousin had stolen his uncle's moonshine and had gotten shit-faced in the barn. But he was feeling extra morose this evening and pulled the half-full bottle of the good stuff out from the back of the liquor cabinet.

Time passed, marked only by the steadily dropping level of bourbon in the bottle. Eliot was leaning forward to grab said bottle, so he could yet again fill his glass, when Parker's sketchbook caught the corner of his eye.

He wouldn't have given it a second thought, except for Hardison's voice in the back his head, urging him to just take a quick look. The hacker had continued to bring it up over the last few weeks, until Eliot had threatened to throw his laptop out the window if he mentioned it one more time. He tried to put it out of his mind, but the damage had been done. Even as he brought the glass up to his lips and took a long swallow of his drink, he couldn't take his eyes off the rather innocuous-looking book that sat on his coffee table.

Inching forward so that he was sitting on the very edge of the couch, he propped his elbows on his knees and sat silently, just contemplating the sketchbook in front of him. He wasn't exactly sure how long he simply sat there staring at it, before his resolve broke.

"God dammit," he muttered to himself, as he reached out and flipped open the cover.

The first couple of pages weren't much of anything. Roughly sketched designs for some new rigs she had talked about building. The security system for the Egyptian wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The floor plan for… the Hague? Eliot wasn't sure he wanted to know how or why Parker knew the layout for the International Criminal Courts and simply turned the page. That was a question for another day.

Then, the rest of the team started popping up. A sketch of Hardison drinking directly from a two-liter bottle of orange soda. Nate, leading a briefing. Sophie, dressed in costume for a con. Him and Hardison bickering. Nate and Sophie leaning over a pile of papers together, among others.

But then the sketches of the others started to disappear, replaced by only drawings of him. His eyes widened as he took in page after page of his own image. He leaned over to turn on the lamp to better see by, and pulled the book into his lap, as he studied the hours worth of work Parker had deemed worthy to put into these sketches.

It seemed like she had been intent on capturing every single one of his expressions. And capture them she had. The way his eyes crinkled when he smiled his genuine smile. The exasperation he wore when Hardison went on one of his nerd spirals. His look of concentration when Nate was laying out the complicated workings of a new con. The pained look of horror he couldn't suppress whenever he was subjected to Sophie's acting. The anticipatory smirk that formed when he knew someone was going to give him a good fight. His head thrown back in laughter in a moment of rare, but genuine amusement that it seemed that only Parker could pull from him these days.

She'd drawn his hair in all of its many styles. Pulled back in a ponytail, tied halfway up, and left down. The way it curled naturally if he let it air dry, and when he tied a bandana around his forehead to keep it out of his way while he cooked.

She'd dedicated pages upon pages to his hands, of all things. He knew they were his, other than in the context of the other sketches, because she'd gotten all the details right. Like the scar on his left index finger from where he'd sliced it when he'd been learning how to cook, and the way the third knuckle on the ring finger of his right hand had never healed quite right after he'd broken it many years before. He never, in a million years, would have guessed she'd paid so much attention to his hands if it weren't for the evidence right in front of him.

There were drawings of his fists wrapped in tape, ready for a workout. His fingers stretched out over the fret of his guitar in a E-minor chord. His hand wrapped around the handle of his favorite chef's knife, accurate down to the nick on the wooden handle. A longneck bottle of beer dangling carelessly from his fingertips. There was a two-page spread of his knuckles, split and bruised in different configurations, and after seeing the rest of her drawings, he couldn't help but believe that each one was from a different specific fight.

They weren't all just pencil sketches and character studies, however. Some pages were devoted to full-fledged drawings that she'd taken the time to finish in color. They were quiet moments, frozen in time, some of them he recognized specifically, but most could have been from any number of days. As he carefully studied each and every one, he wondered what it was about these particular moments that had driven her to put them down on paper. Why these snapshots in time were worth immortalizing to her.

A picture of him standing in his kitchen, leaning over the bar with an empty fork in his hand, having offered her a bite of whatever he was cooking. The pleased half-grin on his face, telling him that she'd enjoyed what she'd tasted.

Him, in profile, sitting in his customary spot on the couch reading a book. Parker's legs emerging from the bottom of the frame, her feet sitting in his lap, the hand not holding his book resting easily on one of her ankles.

Leaning in the doorway between his bedroom and bathroom, a toothbrush dangling from his lips, one ankle crossed over the other. His attention focused entirely on Parker, who, from the perspective of the drawing, was already in bed.

But there was one particular picture that made him pause. He remembered the moment from his perspective with crystal clarity, so it was a bit of a shock to see it from Parker's perspective replicated on paper. It was from the night of the storm when the power went out. And just as he'd committed the sight of her illuminated by the table full of candles to memory, it seemed that she had done the same. But what really got his attention was the look she'd drawn on his face. He had no doubts that it was accurate because it captured the expression it seemed that everyone had caught on his face recently. He just wondered if Parker had understood it, even while she recreated it. That he had been looking at her with eyes full of love.

Climbing to his feet, he took the sketchbook and the bottle with him as he headed back to his bedroom. He paused only to pull his sweatshirt over his head and let his jeans fall to floor before crawling into bed, the now nearly-empty bottle in one hand and the sketchbook in the other.

He went through the entire book a second time, seeing himself as Parker saw him. Reaching the last picture, he quickly flipped through the blank pages at the back, idly thinking that when… _if_ she came back, she was going to need a new sketchbook soon. When his thumb caught on on the thicker cardboard back cover, he spotted a flash of color hidden between the blank pages at the back of the book. It took him a few moments to find it again, his curiosity piqued by the sketch separated from the rest.

It was hands again, but there was one key difference. It wasn't just his, but Parker had sketched her own as well. She'd drawn their hands entwined, her fingers laced through his. The way he'd held her hand at night to assure her he was still there.

Tracing the heavy graphite lines with his eyes he could actually _feel_ the ghost of her hand in his. Such a skilled hand in a petite package. The delicate bones disguising their strength, soft skin broken up by tough calluses hard won from years of climbing and rope work.

His hand ached from the emptiness that was echoed in his chest.

Shutting the sketchbook, he set it on the nightstand. And just as he was turning off the light, he spotted his cellphone poking out of the pocket of his discarded jeans.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Eliot had already snatched the phone off the floor and hit the speed dial for her number.

It went directly to voicemail, but he'd expected that much.

" _How did you get this number?!"_ Parker's voice asked accusingly, before the beep.

"Parker…." he trailed off, not sure what to say. He hadn't thought this through like he should have. Of course, if he'd given himself a moment to think about it, he would have remembered that this was a bad idea and he wouldn't have called at all. When he realized that he'd been silent so long that she'd probably think he'd hung up, he spoke again.

"Darlin', come back to Boston already. Everybody wants you to come back. _I_ want you to come back," he admitted into the dark. "If you left because of me, because of what happened, well…" he trailed off, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. "...we don't have to talk about it. We can pretend it never happened, I mean, if that's what you want. I don't want you to stay away because of me. I never want you to leave because of me or because of something I did. Please Parker, just… just come _home_."

He fell silent again for several long moments, before whispering one last confession over the line.

" _I miss you_."

Hitting the End Call button, he tossed the phone away, not caring where it ended up. Closing his eyes, he leaned back against his pillows and let the alcohol coursing through his bloodstream pull him into a restless sleep.

* * *

A/N Alrighty, one more chapter to go! I can't believe after all this time we're almost to the end! It was my birthday this weekend so maybe leave me a present and let me know what you've thought so far?


	16. Home Is Where The Heart Is

A/N Alright, here we go... last chapter... gotta admit I'm feeling a little emotional about it. Like I have with every chapter I have to take a moment to thank Alexandra926 without whom this story would truly not be here. When I first got the idea for this fic and broke the story to her I thought this was gonna be a quick 4 chapter, 20k word max story. But even as this fic took a life of its own and I constantly wondered what I had gotten myself into, she held my hand when I had doubts about the whole thing and talked me off more ledges than I can count. So I have to thank her for the countless hours she spent editing this fic and for being the best sounding board, beta, and all around friend a girl could ask for...

That's all I have to say for now so I truly hope you enjoy the conclusion to this story, it's been a long time coming...

* * *

As soon as he woke up, Eliot knew that he hadn't gotten enough sleep, even by his standards. Cracking one eye open, the predawn light, barely beginning to brighten the sky outside his window only confirmed that fact. The temptation to roll over and pull the blankets up and over his head was strong, but while he didn't really want to be awake yet, he also knew he wasn't going to be able to fall back asleep anytime soon. He had just thrown an arm over his eyes when a small snuffling noise from the corner of the room caught his attention.

Moving his arm and lifting his head, he immediately spotted her where she was perched on his dresser. Dressed all in black, mostly obscured by shadow, she practically disappeared into the corner of the room. He blinked several times to make sure she wasn't just a trick of the light, or a hallucination brought on by not enough sleep and too much bourbon the night before. She had her legs pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her shins, and as she watched him from over her knees, the expression on her face told him she was as miserable as he felt.

"Parker." Her name left his lips in an exhale as he sat up, the blankets pooling around his waist. "What-"

"I got your message," she cut him off. "I stole a car and drove straight back."

Eliot remembered calling her, but he had drank enough the night before that he could only vaguely recall exactly what he'd said. But whatever he said, must have been the right thing if she was here.

"I left it behind the police station. It'll get back to its owner," she added, misinterpreting the expression on his face.

"I'm glad. That you're back, I mean," he clarified, not really giving a shit about the car. "Parker, why did you leave?"

She didn't speak for a long time, and he wasn't sure she was going to, as her gaze left his and drifted towards the window.

"I'm a thief," she finally stated simply, still looking towards the gradually brightening sky. "A thief takes things."

"I know that, darlin'," he said, watching her expressions cautiously, fairly certain that she wasn't talking about the car she'd boosted anymore.

"I'm the world's best thief," she continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "Or at least I used to be."

"You still are, Parker," Eliot assured her, believing his words wholeheartedly, even as he wondered what in the world she had gotten up to in the last couple weeks that could possibly make her doubt her self-identity, and place in the universe like this. "Of course you are."

"No. I'm not," she glanced back at him for just a second, before shaking her head, her eyes moist as she confessed. "Archie taught me to be the world's best thief. He taught me to take what I wanted and get out before anyone could touch me. He taught me to always have multiple exit strategies. To only steal things you _want_ , never steal things that you _need_ , because that's how sloppy mistakes get made. Because if you can't leave it behind in order to get out clean, then it's too much of a risk. Because _nothing_ is more important than self-preservation."

Eliot's mind was going a million miles a minute, doing his best to decipher exactly what Parker was trying to tell him. He thought he usually spoke her language pretty well, but right now he was at a loss. He had a feeling, though, that this wasn't just an existential crisis borne of a job gone wrong.

"Darlin', what-"

She looked him right in the eye as she continued. "I took something I wanted. I thought I got away clean. I didn't realize until I was gone that it was something I _needed_."

It finally clicked. Eliot threw off the blankets and jumped out of bed, needing to go to her, but when she put a hand out to stop him, his feet froze in place. "Parker-"

"I'm a thief. I _take_ things," she repeated again. "So why do I want to give you…"

"Give me what, sweetheart?" he prompted gently, when she trailed off.

" _ **Everything**_."

She said it like the word was wrenched from her chest without her permission and Eliot found himself once again moving towards her. He forced himself to stop when he standing a few feet in front of her, not sure if his touch was welcome right now. But when she launched herself off of the dresser and into his arms, he didn't hesitate in catching her and holding her tight against his chest.

She barely weighed anything in his arms as he carried her easily back over to the bed. Not that he had much choice in the matter, the way she clung to him like an octopus, all arms and legs wrapped around him tight. Leaning back against the headboard, Eliot let Parker nestle in impossibly closer, and simply ran his hands soothingly up and down her back.

"Why do I feel like this?" she finally asked, her face buried in his neck.

"Feel like what, darlin'?"

"I kept thinking it would get better, but it got worse," she sighed against his skin.

"What did?" he asked, pushing her hair back from her face, trying to read her expression.

"This empty, aching feeling in my chest," she said. "I thought if I stayed away long enough, it would go away too. But it got worse every day until it physically hurt. And I couldn't make it stop until I got in the car and starting driving towards Boston."

"Then why didn't you come home sooner?" Eliot asked, wanting, needing to understand.

Parker exhaled with a huff, like she didn't know either. "I have _feelings_ ," she finally said distastefully. "Weird feelings. That make my stomach feel funny. And I was trying to figure out what they meant, but I'm not good at that," she admitted easily, knowing her own limitations. "Normally I would have asked you about it, but you're the one causing them," she added with a frown.

"Then why didn't you talk to Sophie?" Eliot asked, knowing the other woman would have happily helped Parker work through her emotions.

"Because _you're_ the one I tell things to now," Parker said, as if it should have been obvious.

Eliot was torn between feeling frustrated that this whole thing could have been avoided if Parker just would have called Sophie a month ago, and pleased that if she chose to only have one confidant that it was him. "Why don't you try asking me now," he offered. "And I'll try to be impartial."

Parker didn't say anything for a long time, but Eliot patiently waited her out while she idly wound the ends of his hair around her fingers where they curled against his shoulder.

"I don't understand how you make me feel the way I do," she finally started. "Not the sex," she felt the need to clarify. "That was good. I mean, that was _really good_. I didn't even know it could be like that," she said, with a bit of wonder in her tone. "It was just… _wow_."

"I couldn't agree more, darlin'," Eliot told her, a smug smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. It certainly didn't hurt his ego to hear that it had been as good for her as it had been for him. He didn't know if his pride could have taken the blow, if that had been the reason she'd run out in the middle of the night.

"It's all the other stuff I don't get," she said with a heavy sigh, having obviously turned this over in her mind more times than she could count. "Like why I would rather be around you than anyone else, even when you're all grumpy and growly and mad at the world. Or why food tastes better when you make it. And not just your fancy Eliot food, but a bowl of cereal tastes better just because you're the one that poured the milk. I don't know why I've never slept better than when I'm sleeping next to you, even though after being in so many overcrowded foster homes I swore I'd never share a room with anyone ever again. And when you smile at me it makes my stomach feel the same way right before I make a big jump. And when I can get you to laugh it's like that moment before my line catches and I feel like I'm actually flying."

The hand that had been continually sweeping up and down Parker's back froze on the base of her spine, as Eliot did his best to take in everything that she was saying. His head was spinning as she poured her heart out, and Parker wasn't even done yet.

"I've always preferred being alone, perfectly fine not seeing or talking to another person for days at a time if I didn't have to. But now when I wake up in the morning I can't wait to see you and my night doesn't feel right unless you're there to talk to. And I keep wanting to tell you stuff. Stuff I've never told anyone. I gave you _my name,_ Eliot. No one knows that." Her voice was getting progressively louder and faster the longer she spoke, like the words were spilling from her lips despite herself. "I don't need anyone, I never have, _ever_. So why do I… why… why do I need _**you**_?"

Eliot's first impulse was to want to flip her over and kiss her senseless, show her exactly how her words made him feel. They'd always been 'actions speak louder than words' people. But he knew that on this particular occasion, Parker actually needed him to talk her through this.

"Well, sweetheart," Eliot finally said, his even tone at odds with the way his heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest. "I think, that most people would call the way you're feeling... love."

Parker mulled that over for a minute. "So, all those things I feel... mean I love you."

Eliot wasn't sure if she meant it as a statement or a question, but he answered it anyways. "I'm afraid so, darlin'."

Parker lifted her head enough that she could look up into Eliot's face. "I don't think I like it."

He chuckled low in his chest, not nearly as offended as someone who didn't understand Parker the way he did might have been. "I don't think people like us ever do," he offered, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear

"People like us?" she asked curiously.

"Survivors," he clarified. "Because when you love someone, your happiness suddenly becomes contingent on another person's happiness and wellbeing. If you choose to give your heart to someone, you have to trust them to take care of it. That's a hard thing to reconcile when you're used to doing whatever needs to be done in order to survive. "

She tucked her head back underneath his chin. "I don't think I like it," she confessed again, "but I don't want it to stop either."

"Yeah," he sighed in agreement. "That's the catch, isn't it? You know what makes it easier though?" he asked, gently hooking a finger under Parker's chin until she was looking at him again. "If the person you give your heart to, gives theirs right back."

Parker looked right into Eliot's eyes, shining at her all blue and bright. It only took a moment for her to figure out what it was he was trying to tell her. "You love me too," she said, a smile so bright it was like looking into the sun, spreading across her face.

"I do, sweetheart," he confirmed a grin of his own twisting at his mouth. "God help me, but I do."

"I trust you to take care of my heart," she told him solemnly. "And I promise to take care of yours."

Eliot did the only thing he could think to do in that moment.

He kissed her.

It was a slow languid kiss, exploratory and full of promises. Their last time together, had been all passion and heat, want and need, moments stolen in the small hours between late and early, under the cover of darkness where anything could happen. But now in the dawning light of a new day, they moved together unhurried, wandering hands and worshipful lips taking their time to map out bodies that were already so familiar, despite the relative newness that was this. Time stretched and contracted around them, losing all meaning as they carefully peeled each other out of their clothes until there was nothing between them but skin.

Once neither of them could stand another minute of teasing, Eliot settled himself between Parker's welcoming thighs. He was resting right against her entrance, ready to push inside, when he hesitated.

"Tell me you're not going to leave again."

"You want to talk about this _now_?" she asked, looking up at him like he was the crazy one.

And maybe he was, because he _did_ want to talk about it now. "Tell me."

"Fine, I won't leave," she said, frustration in her tone, lifting her hips in an attempt to capture him.

But Eliot simply shifted backwards, keeping the same distance between them. "I mean it, Parker," he insisted. Maybe it wasn't fair of him to press the issue when she was all wound up and wanting. But neither of them were particularly known for playing fair. "Promise me," he said, knowing that Parker took her promises seriously. "No more disappearing into the night without a word. No more running. I won't go through that again."

He meant it, too. He'd been a mess this past month, and that was before they had made any declarations of real feelings between them. If he allowed himself to _really_ love her, and she disappeared again for weeks on end… he didn't know what he'd do.

Parker nodded silently, her eyes wide at the raw expression of emotion on Eliot's face.

That wasn't good enough. "No, I need to hear you say it. Promise me that if you feel like you need to run, you'll talk to me first. You and me, we're in this together now."

Cradling Eliot's face in her hands, Parker looked him right in the eyes so that he could see how serious she was being. "I promise. No more running. Unless…"

"Unless what?" he asked with a frown.

"Unless you're running with me," she replied simply, a gentle smile on her face.

"That works for me," Eliot said, leaning in to kiss her while he slowly pushed inside her. "Because I'm not letting you go again."

"I don't want you to," she gasped, her eyes fluttering shut as she took him in, inch by inch.

"And if you ever try that again, I'm coming after you," he added, not even sure himself if it was a warning or a promise.

"Good," she sighed, her back arching when he finally bottomed out inside of her.

"Because your name, it's not enough for me," he murmured into her ear. "I want all of you, I _need_ all of you."

"Need you," she agreed, clawing at his back. "Need you so much."

He thought he could live and die a happy man between her silky thighs. He might worry about becoming addicted to this, if he wasn't already so far gone for her, that everything else was incidental at this point. He didn't know what he'd done to deserve this woman's love, but he knew he'd do everything in his power to keep it. His crazy but wonderful, innocent but wicked, complicated but straightforward, thief.

"Mine," she growled, although Eliot thought it was more kitten than tiger. "You're mine now. I stole you and I'm not giving you back."

Eliot just kissed her hard in response, not contesting her words. He was hers, for as long as she wanted him. The only part he disagreed with was that he didn't think you could steal something that was freely given. But maybe she _had_ stolen his heart a long time ago, and it just took his brain a while longer to catch up.

With her ankles crossed behind his back, he was getting the perfect angle with every thrust, and she used her heels to urge him along. "Don't stop," she gasped, her hands going above her head to clutch at the headboard. "Please don't stop."

"Not gonna," he assured her. "Never gonna stop."

He ran his palms up her arms until his hands found hers, lacing their fingers together and grasping them tight. With her arms pinned above her head, her body was stretched out beneath him, leaving him ample opportunity to get his mouth on every square inch of skin he could reach. He hadn't shaved in over a week, and the substantial stubble on his cheeks was leaving an angry trail of red burns on her delicate skin, but the way she arched into the rasp told him she was far from complaining.

He made his way back to her lips and kissed her long and hard until air was an issue and he had to pull away. He took a moment just to look at her, pale skin flushed with exertion, blonde hair haloing her head against the sheets, pink lips parted as her breath hitched with every thrust. She was gorgeous. And she was his.

Sensing his stare, her eyes fluttered open and she met his gaze. And as she looked up at him, eyes devoid of any of the barriers she usually used to shutter her emotions, he was sure he had never felt closer, more connected to another person in his life.

"Parker." Her name left his lips as a benediction, before he said the words that he had as of yet only implied. "I love you."

Those three little words, said to her for the first time in her life, was all the push Parker needed to send her careening over the edge. She came with a cry of his name, every muscle in her body tensing, in a toe curling, back arching climax. Eliot couldn't have held on if he wanted to, and using their still clasped hands for leverage he rocked his hips into hers as he rode out the wave of his own orgasm.

When he went to roll over, she once again protested. Instead of fighting her on it, he instead let a little more of his weight settle on top of her, only to be rewarded with a blissful sigh. It appeared that this was going to be a thing, and while he still had concerns about crushing her, he could deal if it made her happy.

"No, where are you going?" Parker asked with a frown, when Eliot did eventually move.

"I'm just going to go clean up," he assured her, dropping a kiss to the tip of her nose before rolling out of bed.

When he emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, a damp washcloth in his hand, he paused in the doorway to take in the sight in front of him. Parker was laying in the middle of the bed where he'd left her, heedless of her nudity, a satisfied smile curling the corners of her mouth. One arm was curled above her head, while she ran her fingers from her throat, through the valley between her breasts, down to her belly button and back up again with her other hand. He couldn't help but think that she looked like a work of art, comparable to the masterpieces they'd stolen in their line of work.

"You're gorgeous," he found himself saying. "You know that?"

Parker opened her eyes, and rolled her head in his direction, answering his question with a smile and an outreached hand, inviting him back to bed.

He sat on the edge of the mattress, leaning over to kiss her sweetly, while he used the washcloth to gently clean between her thighs. Tossing the towel through the open bathroom door to be dealt with later, he picked the comforter up from where it landed on the floor and crawled back into bed, pulling the blanket up over both of them. He'd barely settled before Parker rolled towards him, plastering herself to his side, resting her head on his shoulder.

"I really missed you," she whispered against his skin. "I'm sorry I left."

Eliot's eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. Parker did not apologize, especially not voluntarily.

"I forgive you sweetheart," he absolved her. "Just please don't do it again. I understand the impulse to run. I'm not trying to change you, I just need you to talk to me first next time."

"I promised I would," she reminded him.

"That you did."

They laid together basking in the afterglow for quite some time. Eliot was running his hand up and down her bare back just savoring the feel of her skin, when he opened his eyes and noticed the frown on Parker's face.

"What are you thinking about so hard, darlin'?" Eliot asked, using his thumb to smooth out the furrow that had developed between her brows. He'd already forgiven her, so he wasn't sure why she would be looking so glum right now.

"I don't know how to do this," Parker said softly. "It's my first time."

"Now I know neither of those things are true," Eliot refuted, with a suggestive raise of his eyebrow.

Parker pinched the inside of his arm, grinning when he narrowed his eyes at her. "No, I mean like _a relationship_ ," she said, the words rolling off her tongue like they were a foreign language.

Eliot sighed. "I'm no expert either, darlin'," he admitted. It had been years since his last failed relationship, and truthfully he'd never expected to find himself in another one. He just didn't think it was in the cards for someone like him. Not with the life he led.

"So then, how do we do this?" she asked sincerely, not wanting to mess this up. "How _do_ you relationship?"

Eliot opened his mouth to tease her that it wasn't a verb, but then quickly snapped it shut again, suddenly feeling like he'd been hit on the side of a head with a crowbar. A sensation he was familiar with since it had actually happened to him before. Something that _Parker_ had done to him before.

"Actually, sweetheart," he began, sounding a bit mystified himself. "I think we've been in one for a long time," he told her, unsure how he hadn't realized it before.

"How long?" Parker asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.

"Months," he told her. "Coming up on a year, maybe," he shrugged, thinking that if they counted those early days of dinners and movies as dates, it had definitely been that long.

"That can't be right," she frowned.

"No, I think it is," he insisted. "We just didn't notice." It may have been a while since his last serious relationship, but he pretty sure they'd hit all the standard benchmarks in the last year for a long term committed relationship. The only thing that had been missing was the sexual aspect, which was, well... no longer missing.

"But Sophie said relationships are hard, and they take a lot of work," Parker countered. "You and me… that's easy." She considered it a moment longer before coming to a conclusion. "We must just be super good at this relationship thing already," she declared brightly.

Eliot wasn't entirely sure that he agreed. They hadn't exactly gotten to this point without their fair share of growing pains and rough patches. Including, but not limited to the fact that she'd just taken off for a month, because feelings are hard.

Then again, on paper, the two of them shouldn't work at all; two stubborn, fiercely independent and solitary creatures by nature. But they'd managed to work through their issues time and again, not only unknowingly salvaging their budding relationship, but making it stronger all the time. He was under no delusion that it would be all fairy tales and unicorns from here on out, but he had faith that they would continue to work things out. So maybe, as Parker so eloquently said, they _were_ pretty good at this relationship thing.

"I guess we are," he agreed with good humor.

Parker rewarded him a kiss, until a yawn so wide it made her eyes water, forced her to break it off. While his male ego wanted to take credit for her exhaustion, he only had to take one look at the circles under her eyes that were so dark they looked like bruises, to know that she hadn't been sleeping well either these past few weeks. And a part of him that he wasn't particularly proud of, was perversely glad that he wasn't the only one who was struggling to sleep alone these days.

"Get some sleep, sweetheart," he told her, repressing a yawn of his own. "There's nowhere we need to be. We can stay in bed all day if you want."

"I like the sound of that," she said slyly. He could feel her smile against his skin as her hand began to slide from his shoulder, down his chest and under the blankets.

He caught her wrist just short of her intended destination. "Sleep first," he said firmly, bringing her hand up to his lips and placing a kiss to her fingertips to soften his refusal. Quite frankly, he needed the rest as much as she did, especially if this was how Parker was planning to spend the rest of the day after their nap. Not that he was going to complain.

When he placed her hand back down in the center of his chest and covered it with his own to keep it from wandering again, Parker giggled lightly, but otherwise let it alone. Instead, she simply cuddled closer and shut her eyes with a contented sigh. It didn't take long for her breathing to slow and even out and Eliot was sure she was asleep, he himself only a few moments behind her, until her eyes shot back open with a gasp.

"What's wrong, baby?" he asked, his eyes filled with concern.

"Home is where your heart is," she said breathlessly.

Eliot was confused. " _What_?"

"That's what you told me, months ago," she explained, her eyes wide with her revelation. "You were right. I just didn't get it then, but I do now." She placed a hand over Eliot's heart, feeling its strong steady beat. "Home is where _your_ heart is."

Something akin to awe passed over Eliot's face and he couldn't stop himself from sinking a hand into her hair, and pulling her lips down to his. He poured all the feelings he didn't have words for into that kiss, and the look in her eyes when she pulled away for air told him that the message was received.

"You were right, too, that day," he told her, the reverence in his expression being replaced by something a bit more mischievous. His smirk only deepened when she looked at him puzzled, his hand sneaking under the covers to give her bare ass a squeeze. "Home is where the pants aren't."

Parker threw back her head in a delighted laugh. "No more complaining about my lack of pants?" she asked with a triumphant grin.

"No more complaining," he confirmed, flipping them over, so he was hovering above her, bracing himself on his elbows. "In fact, I might just start insisting on it," he added, only half-teasing, since he wasn't going to have to repress what seeing her walking around in nothing but one of his shirts did to him anymore.

When he leaned down to kiss her again, she arched up to meet him halfway. "I thought you wanted to sleep first," she muttered against his lips.

"What can I say," he murmured as he began trailing a series of kisses down the cords of throat. "You're very… _inspiring_."

From the moment Parker had gotten Eliot's message that morning, she had had the same feeling in the pit of her stomach that she got right before a big a jump that she hadn't had time to properly prepare for. But now she knew it was okay to take that leap, because he was there to catch her. Eliot would _always_ catch her.

And as they once again made love with the soft morning sun pouring through the windows, Parker was once again filled with maelstrom of emotions that she would never be able to pull apart to identify and name individually. But now she knew what it was called when they were all bubbling up together.

It was called love.

And love feels like home.

* * *

AN And there it is! That's the end! I wrote a large chunk of this chapter very early in the writing process so I've been eager for a long time to share it with you all and I hope it was worth the wait.

Before I say goodbye on this particular verse, I just want to say thank you to all of you. Thank you to everyone who's been here since the beginning and everyone we've picked up along the way. Double thank yous to everyone who has taken the time to comment especially those of you who have commented on every chapter, you don't even know how much I look forward to seeing you names in my inbox. Writing is hard and can be really lonely, and getting feedback, knowing you guys are enjoying all the long hours of work really makes all the time and energy worth it. And thank you to everyone who's reading this now, even if you are a lurker :P I truly hope you enjoyed it :)


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